Iraq leaders should face tribunal - campaigners

An international criminal tribunal should be set up following any regime change in Iraq, a campaign group said today.

Indict, a non-governmental organisation part funded by the US State of Department, said a body similar to those created after the conflicts in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia would be the best way to bring Saddam Hussein’s government to account.

Speaking at a conference of Iraqi opposition leaders in London, Peter Galbraith a former US ambassador to Croatia who now sits on the board of Indict, said: “International justice is critical to peace.

“I served as the first ambassador to Croatia in the early part of the peace process. It was clear to me that the only way to get a lasting peace in the Balkans was by holding those who committed atrocities personally responsible.

“The same process obviously makes sense for Iraq. The most obvious one would be an international criminal tribunal like the ones for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.”

The conference, which is made up of more than 300 delegates from 50 different Iraqi political, religious and ethnic groups have been told that Saddam would be deposed.

Delegates are discussing the way forward for the country following any regime change, including bringing the perpetrators of atrocities to justice.

Among the delegates is Said Abdul Aziz Al Hakim, a representative of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Director of the War Crimes Documentation Centre in the Iranian capital Tehran.

Mr Galbraith, who was in the Balkans from 1993 – 1998, told Al Hakim they too had been documenting some of the crimes that have taken place against the Iraqi Kurds and other groups and that they were aware of “terrible crimes” committed during the Iran-Iraq conflict.

Indict would push for Saddam and his inner circle, including his deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, to be brought to justice.

“We focus on 12 leading suspects of which Saddam Hussein heads the list,” said Mr Galbraith.

“Obviously, these (atrocities) were not all committed by 12 people. It seems to me that over time we would need a much broader process.

“In the former Yugoslavia, there is a process in which a certain number of people could be indicted and tried then you try to have a sort of reconciliation.

“It is in the nature of these regimes that they implicate everyone.”

Countering claims that setting up a tribunal would be an ’empty gesture’, Mr Galbraith added that many of those wanted for suspected atrocities in the Balkans were now in The Hague, including the former Serb President Slobodan Milosevic.