Saddam faces new genocide trial

By Mussab al-Khairallah

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Saddam Hussein will stand trial on new
charges of genocide against Kurds in the late 1980s, the court
trying him for crimes against humanity said on Tuesday.

Prosecutors said the former Iraqi leader, facing a possible
death sentence, could stand trial as early as next month for
the killing of thousands of Kurds and destruction of their
villages.

Saddam’s co-accused will include his cousin Ali Hassan
al-Majeed, known as “Chemical Ali” for his role in a poison gas
attack against the Kurdish village of Halabja in 1988 that
killed 5,000 people.

“We declare the investigations are completed in the case
called the Anfal campaign in which thousands of women, children
and men were killed. The accused are being transferred to the
criminal court,” court spokesman Raid Jouhi said.

“They will be tried according to the Iraqi law for charges
of genocide and crimes against humanity.”

The former Iraqi president is already on trial in
connection with the killing of 148 Shi’ites in the town of
Dujail after an attempt on his life there in 1982.

Even though the Halabja gas attack took place in the same
period as Anfal, it was not part of that campaign and will be
tried in a separate case, said Jouhi and Iraqi prosecutors.

Kurds were pleased to hear that Saddam would face charges
for the Anfal campaign. But some said life had become so
difficult in postwar Iraq that watching him on the witness
stand would not make much of a difference.

“I am happy that Saddam will go on trial because of
everything he did. But it really won’t matter much. There is no
security in the country now. It is much worse than before. At
least we knew what the danger was,” said Sahar Ibrahim, 30.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Tuesday he expected
Saddam to stand trial for all cases filed against him before
the court reaches a verdict. He faces death by hanging if found
guilty.

That could mean a drawn-out process that Saddam has already
turned into a platform to challenge the authority of the court
and urge Iraqis to revolt against U.S. occupation.

POLITICAL STALEMATE

Some of Saddam’s old enemies, former exiles who are now
political leaders, are struggling to form postwar Iraq’s first
full-term government nearly four months after parliamentary
elections.

Their deadlock over the post of prime minister has prompted
the United States and Britain to step up pressure on Iraqi
leaders to form a new government as soon as possible.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her British
counterpart Jack Straw warned Iraqi leaders at the weekend that
time was running out, saying the political vacuum threatened to
fuel violence.

Pressure is building on Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari
to step down to break the stalemate. But even if he does, there
are no clear replacements in his Shi’ite Alliance and few
Iraqis believe their politicians can tackle the country’s woes.

Iraq’s volatility was underlined on Tuesday. A car bomb
exploded in eastern Baghdad, killing at least seven people and
wounding 25, police said.

And with no sign their leaders will reach agreement, Iraqis
can only expect more uncertainty and bloodshed.

Sectarian violence has surged since the bombing of a
Shi’ite shrine on February 22 touched off reprisals and pushed
Iraq closer than ever to civil war.

Hundreds of people have been killed. Bodies often turn up
on streets around Baghdad showing signs of torture.

Police retrieved a body from a river in Latifiya, a town in
an area called the “Triangle of Death” south of Baghdad because
its guerrilla attacks. It was bound and blindfolded with
gunshot wounds, police said.

In Baghdad, two young girls were killed and their mother
and brother wounded when a bomb exploded inside their house in
the New Baghdad district of Baghdad on Tuesday, police said.

Gunmen killed two Iraqi employees of the United Arab
Emirates embassy as they drove away from work together.