Iraqi govt wants Saddam POW status changed

Iraq will ask the United States to change Saddam Hussein’s status as a prisoner of war and to hand him to Iraqis for trial, Iraq’s foreign minister said today.

“We have agreed with the United States and the coalition forces that whenever we are ready as Iraqis, and especially after we regain power … we will demand changing Saddam’s status as a prisoner of war,” said Hoshyar Zebari.

Speaking at a press conference in Kuwait at the end of a two-day meeting with delegates of Iraq’s neighbours, he said the new Iraqi government will also ask that the former Iraqi leader now in US custody is “handed over to the Iraqi justice.”

Washington, which plans to transfer power to Iraqis on June 30, declared Saddam a war prisoner last month because of his status as former commander-in-chief of Iraq’s military.

POW status under the Geneva Conventions grants Saddam certain rights, including access to visits by the International Red Cross and freedom from coercion of any kind during interrogations.

The United States has said it wants an Iraqi court to try Saddam, who has been in its custody under CIA interrogation since his capture on December 13.

Prisoner of war status does not preclude prosecution.

Washington says Saddam’s government killed at least 300,00 Iraqis, including thousands of Iraqi Kurds in a poison gas attack in 1988.