Prosecutors to pin Saddam on 12 charges

SADDAM HUSSEIN could face up to 500 charges, but prosecutors will focus on 12 well-documented cases, including the gassing of thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq, an official said yesterday.

The announcement was made as the government pressed ahead with efforts to start the trial of the ousted dictator within two months.

It also came a day after US Marines said they had discovered 50 weapons and ammunitions caches over the past four days in the restive Anbar province. The find included a recently used “insurgent lair” in a massive underground bunker complex that included air-conditioned living quarters and hi-tech military equipment, including night vision goggles.

Separately, Australia’s top Islamic cleric said he has seen hostage Douglas Wood and the 63-year-old California-based Australian engineer is “still alive and in honest hands” and has received vital medication for his heart condition. Sheik Taj El Din al-Hilaly is in Iraq on a mission to secure Mr Wood’s release.

South of Baghdad, Iraqi forces backed by US troops staged a second day of raids in Latifiyah, a town in the blood-soaked Triangle of Death region, where insurgents have launched multiple bombings and deadly ambushes.

Washington hinges the eventual withdrawal of US troops from Iraq on the ability of Iraq’s US-backed police and army forces to take control of their own country’s security. But the raging insurgency, which has seen at least 820 people killed since Iraq’s new government was announced on April 28, has dimmed hopes of any quick pullout.

The insurgents’ bunker was found cut from a rock quarry in Karmah, 80 kilometres west of Baghdad.

In its rooms were “four fully furnished living spaces, a kitchen with fresh food, two shower facilities and a working air conditioner. Other rooms within the complex were filled with weapons and ammunition.”

The weapons included “numerous types of machine guns, ordnance, including mortars, rockets and artillery rounds, black uniforms, ski masks, compasses, log books, night vision goggles, and fully charged cell phones.”

A date has not been set for the trial of Saddam, who has been held in a US-run prison in Baghdad since his capture in December 2003.

But a spokesperson for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said the government was confident it would begin within the next two months.

“There should be no objection that a trial should take place within that time,” spokesperson Laith Kuba said at a press conference.

“It is the government’s view that the trial of Saddam should take place as soon as possible.”

Mr Kuba said prosecutors have narrowed their case against Saddam to focus on 12 charges, including the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, where an estimated 5,000 people were killed and 10,000 injured on March 16, 1988.

Saddam could face more than 500 charges, but “there is no reason behind wasting efforts on all 500”, Mr Kuba said. “The number of charges on which he will be tried are 12 and the [investigating] judges are confident that he will be convicted of these charges.”

Issam Ghazawi, a Jordan-based spokesperson for Saddam’s legal team, criticised Mr Kuba’s comments, saying: “It’s illegal to issue charges against the Iraqi president this way.”