Saddam trial adjourns as defense buys time

By Alastair Macdonald

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Saddam Hussein won a 40-day reprieve to
hone his defense after pleading not guilty to crimes against
humanity on the first day of a televised trial that gripped the
nation.

“Once I had six sons; Saddam snatched them from me,” said
Fakhriya Issa Moussa, 78, a Shi’ite woman in the northern city
of Kirkuk. “What I want is to kill those who killed my sons.”

Saddam’s lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaymi, said the defense needed
another three months to prepare.

“It is necessary to have international lawyers for such a
sensitive and huge case … because the case is much bigger
than Iraqi lawyers’ capability,” he told Al Jazeera television.

Sixty years to the week since Nazi leaders were indicted at
Nuremberg, some see the trial bringing closure for victims and
allowing others to accept Iraq’s unhappy past.

Thursday’s newspapers will be full of it. Al-Sabah said it
was devoting its first three pages to the trial and will give
over its back page to photographs of Saddam and his seven
co-accused, all of whom declared their innocence in court.

At least one international legal watchdog welcomed the
adjournment to November 28 by Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin as a
sign of fairness to a defense that complained it had
insufficient time to prepare for a case centring on the killing
of 148 Shi’ite Muslim men after a failed assassination attempt
in 1982.

The judge, an ethnic Kurd who has risked revenge attacks by
appearing on television to try Saddam, said the court needed
time to persuade witnesses who were “scared” to testify.

With Iraq deeply divided along sectarian and ethnic lines
since U.S. troops ousted Saddam in 2003, some have questioned
the nation’s ability to mount a fair trial. The government’s
sponsors in Washington see the process as showpiece of their
efforts to install a credible, democratic system in Iraq.

Saddam himself insisted he was still head of state and
demanded of the judge “Who are you?.” He dismissed the court as
the product of an illegal invasion which he would not
recognize.

“Aggression is illegitimate and what is built on
illegitimacy is illegitimate,” he told the presiding judge.

“NOT GUILTY”

After the eight Baath party men were read the charges and
told the penalty could be death by hanging, the 68-year-old
joined his aging comrades in replying “Not guilty.”

The London lawyer coordinating his defense, Abdel al Haq al
-Ani, dismissed the process as farce: “The Americans are intent
on making this pure theater, a show trial.”

Saddam’s plea came despite his earlier refusal to recognize
the court.

The Iraqi parliament also brought into effect a law that
may reduce the scope for the defense to reject its legitimacy
on the grounds of being a product of occupation.

The International Center for Transitional Justice, which
offers help to countries dealing with past abuses, said it was
encouraged by the performance of the court under Judge Amin,
whose coolness and occasional smiles seemed to calm tempers.

“The tribunal judges’ professional treatment of the defense
counsel … was encouraging and the decision to adjourn is a
significant step in the right direction,” the ICTJ said.

Many Iraqis, notably among the Shi’ite Muslim majority and
ethnic Kurds, see the trial bringing justice after three
decades of oppression. Millions want Saddam hanged, and
quickly.

But in Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, still a focus for
militants among the once dominant Sunni Arab minority, dozens
of youths marched through the streets in protest at the trial.

“The trial is unfair,” said student Dawud Farham, 18. “They
should put on trial those who are tearing apart Iraq.”

U.S. SUPPORT

The United States, which drew up the original statutes of
the special tribunal trying Iraq’s ousted leadership, hailed
the start of the first of what could be several trials, linking
it with a new constitution voted on in a referendum five days
ago.

“Like the constitutional referendum … the trials that
begin today … will help pave the path to a democratic and
independent Iraq,” U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said.

The referendum appears to have passed the constitution,
despite a strong Sunni Arab turnout that, according to local
officials, may have produced big “No” votes in two of Iraq’s 18
provinces — one short of an effective veto.

Counting and auditing of results, some of which showed huge
percentages for or against depending on the region, was still
going on in Baghdad’s Green Zone government compound, not far
from the former Baath party building where Saddam was on trial.

An official result may be available on Friday or Saturday,
said Adel al-Lamy of the Electoral Commission.