Turbulent Saddam trial court appoints new judge

By Aseel Kami and Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The court trying Saddam Hussein named a
new chief judge on Monday after the original presiding judge
resigned and his replacement was accused of being a supporter
of the former Iraqi president.

Raouf Abdel Rahman, a Kurd from Halabja where 5,000 died in
a gas attack during an offensive by Saddam’s forces, was
appointed on the eve of the resumption of hearings.

Defense counsel say they will call on Tuesday for a halt to
proceedings because the court’s independence has been
undermined.

The Iraqi High Tribunal has been in turmoil since Kurdish
chief judge Rizgar Amin resigned earlier this month,
complaining about government pressure to speed up the trial and
clamp down on lengthy tirades by Saddam and some of his seven
co-accused.

Amin told Reuters he stood by his decision, although the
government had not yet accepted his resignation: “Everybody is
trying to influence my decision but it is final.”

Amin’s deputy on the five-judge panel, Shi’ite Arab Sayeed
al-Hamashi, was chosen by his fellow judges last week to
preside over Tuesday’s session, and court sources said he was
also the consensus choice to take over permanently.

But Iraq’s Debaathification Committee, an independent panel
charged with rooting out Saddam’s followers from positions of
power, accused Hamashi and 19 other members of the court of
belonging to the former ruling Baath party, a charge they deny.

The tribunal at first shrugged off the accusations,
insisting that Hamashi would still preside on Tuesday, but on
Monday court spokesman Raid Jouhi said: “The tribunal met today
and decided that judge Raouf Abdel Rahman will head the court.”

Another court official told Reuters: “Because of the
problems with the Debaathification Committee they decided to
shift aside Sayeed Hamashi and assign Raouf Abdel Rahman.”

Like Amin, Rahman, 64, is a Kurd and is a judge in one of
the tribunal’s trial chambers.

His home town is Halabja, a Kurdish village where Saddam’s
security forces are accused of killing 5,000 people in one day
in 1988 in a mustard and nerve gas attack. The massacre is one
of the cases for which Saddam may be tried later.

Saddam is now on trial for crimes against humanity, charged
with killing 148 men from the Shi’ite town of Dujail after a
failed bid to assassinate him there in 1982.

Defense WANTS TRIAL HALTED

His defense counsel said on Sunday they planned to call for
a halt to the trial in light of Amin’s protests about political
interference.

“It’s unthinkable they would press forward,” said former
U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark as he left neighbouring
Jordan for Baghdad with the team of Iraqi and foreign lawyers.

“We expect greater intimidation and pressures. That’s what
the message from the pressures put on judge Amin say. ‘Run this
railroad, get going, move and run over anyone who gets in your
way’.”

The defense, two of whose attorneys were killed after the
first hearings on television, argues that a fair trial is
impossible in Iraq, where some in Saddam’s Sunni Arab minority
are engaged in vicious sectarian and ethnic conflicts with a
U.S.-backed government dominated by Shi’ites and Kurds.

If the trial proceeds this week as planned, Saddam may be
confronted from the witness stand by former associates.

“There will be former regime members” among witnesses
appearing on several days of hearings, a Western diplomat
closely involved in the U.S.-sponsored trial told reporters on
Sunday.

The first trial could wind up by late May, he said, but at
least half a dozen others are lined up and the process may last
years.

(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy)