Iraq to ‘hold Saddam trial’

IRAQ is still intent on trying former leader Saddam Hussein at home despite his current status as a prisoner of war in US hands, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said yesterday.

The United States declared the former Iraqi president a prisoner of war after arresting him in December. The designation means Saddam is due rights under the Geneva Convention on treatment of POWs and deprives Iraq the right to try him.

“Saddam will be tried by an Iraqi court despite his current status as a prisoner of war,” Zebari said.

“After the formation of a sovereign Iraqi government, we will ask the coalition forces to change this classification and hand him over to the Iraqi government ahead of his trial,” he said.

US-led forces which ousted Saddam last year are due to transfer sovereignty to Iraqis after June 30. The Iraqi Governing Council is setting up a war crimes tribunal to try Saddam on charges which may include genocide and crimes against humanity.

The US Justice Department this weekend dispatched a high-level team to Iraq to assemble evidence for war crimes cases against Saddam and members of his regime which could take up to two years. The team will be assigned to a new Regime Crimes Adviser’s Office run by the Coalition Provisional Authority.

The goal of the effort is to sift through thousands of pages of evidence and provide a roadmap for Iraqis to use when they eventually bring Saddam and others in his administration before war crimes tribunals.

Salem Chalabi, an Iraqi lawyer in charge of the war crimes issue, said Iraqis want to avoid giving Saddam an international platform to try to justify his actions, as former Serbian leader and Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic has done in his war crimes trial at The Hague, Netherlands.

“We don’t want the tribunal and people like Saddam to be the principal teller of the history here,” Chalabi said. “We want to bring very specific charges.”

US officials want the world to view the trials as an Iraqi process, not one run by Americans or other foreigners.

The Iraqi Governing Council has already set up tribunals consisting of three panels of five judges each, with nine other judges to serve on an appeals panel.

The timetable for a trial of Saddam is not yet clear, nor are the charges that might be brought.