Work starts on Saddam war crimes tribunal

Iraq’s US-appointed Governing Council has met for the first time to look into ways of appointing judges to a new war crimes tribunal that could try Saddam Hussein.

One council member, Adnan Pachachi, said yesterday Iraq’s tribunal would welcome foreign judges “if we feel it’s necessary”.

“We just started today preliminary discussions on methods and procedures to appoint judges” to the tribunal, said Mouwafak al-Rubaie, a Shi’ite doctor and human rights activist.

A committee of highly qualified lawyers could recommend candidates to be judges on the tribunal, which will try former members of Saddam’s regime for human rights abuses stretching back decades, al-Rubaie said.

Saddam was captured on Saturday, and some governing council members say they want to try him within months. However, he is in US custody and the timescale and format of a possible trial has yet to be established.

London-based Amnesty International and other rights groups have expressed concern about the legitimacy of the Iraqi court, saying it must conform with the norms of international law.

New-York Based Human Rights Watch said there was no requirement in the tribunal law that judges, prosecutors or investigators be disqualified if they were found not to be impartial, involved personally in crimes or related to victims.

Governing council members say Saddam should face the death penalty if convicted. The US-led occupation authority suspended the death penalty, and Iraqi officials have said they will decide whether to reinstate it when a transitional government assumes sovereignty scheduled by July 1.

Meanwhile, survivors of the 1988 chemical attack ordered by Saddam Hussein on a Kurdish town, killing 5,000 people, have said the former dictator must be executed for his crimes against the Iraqi people.

For that reason, people in Halabja said Saddam must not be tried before an international tribunal that would not impose the death penalty. The captured former dictator must face justice in an Iraqi court, they say.

Amna Abdulqader, who lost two sons, a daughter, a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren when the bombs carrying mustard and other poison gases were dropped, said: “If he had fallen into my hands, I would have bitten off his flesh with my teeth.”

Saddam’s trial ought to be “just and comprehensive” said Abdulqader Hassan Mohammed, whose three-year-old daughter died in the attack – part of Saddam’s scorched-earth campaign to wipe out a Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq.

“Just means that he has to be executed. If they don’t hang him it won’t be just,” Mohammed said.

"Five thousand innocent people were killed. It will be a mistake if he’s not sentenced to death."

Mohammed’s three surviving sons, Asou, 22, Ahmed, 21, and Othman, 24, still suffer effects of the gas attack. Othman is being treated in Britain.

“I would like to pour boiling oil on Saddam’s head and cut his flesh into pieces,” said Mohammed’s wife, Nesrin, 43.