Judge at Saddam Trial ‘Says It is Too Difficult to Carry on and Plans to Quit’

By Margaret Neighbour

THE chief judge in the trial of Saddam Hussein plans to step down, a source close to the case said last night.

The surprise development could throw an already turbulent process into further disarray.

“He wants to withdraw,” the source, speaking to the Reuters news organisation, said of Kurdish judge Rizgar Amin, who is due to preside over the next sitting of the court on 24 January.

“He will oversee the next sitting and then announce his reasons for withdrawing,” the source added.

There was no explanation last night why the judge, based in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya, wanted to pull out of a trial which has made his face one of the best known in Iraq after days of live television coverage. All the unnamed source would say was: “It is too difficult.”

The killings of two defence lawyers for some of Saddam’s seven co- accused in the trial for crimes against humanity had already highlighted the difficulties of a legal process in a country mired in a virtual civil war.

Another of the panel of five judges pulled out earlier in the trial, which opened on 19 October in a heavily fortified courtroom in Baghdad.

He withdrew because he discovered he was related to an alleged victim of one defendant, and was replaced.

Initially only Amin, whose dry wit marked the early days of the trial, was seen on camera, although one of the other five judges has since been identified.

Critics have questioned, however, why Amin has allowed the former president and other defendants to speak at great length.

When the court gave the former Iraqi leader an opportunity to cross-examine witnesses last month, Saddam instead used the time to expand on earlier assertions he had been abused in custody.

He claimed wounds he suffered from the alleged beatings had been documented by at least two American teams.