Saddam faces trial for gassing Kurds

Former Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein faces a range of charges from gassing thousands of Kurds to executing political and religious leaders, a list of the cases against him showed today.

Insurgents opposed to Iraq’s new government launched mortars attacks that killed six civilians in the country’s north, officials said.

Iraqi officials want the case against Saddam, who could face 500 charges if prosecutors want to proceed on all counts, to concentrate on about a dozen thoroughly-documented cases authorities believe the ousted leader will be convicted on.

A list obtained early today from the special tribunal, which will hear the case against Saddam and 11 of his henchmen, showed prosecutors seemed to be concentrating on 14 cases. Many received international attention during Saddam’s three decades in power. The list contains few details.

Iraqi authorities believe the trial against Saddam, which could commence within two months, will have a major effect on curbing the violent insurgency raging throughout the country, which has killed at least 844 people since the new Shiite Muslim-led government was announced on April 28.

Separate mortar barrages today and yesterday apparently targeting police stations in the northern city of Mosul have killed six Iraqis, including two children, US and Iraqi officials said.

Gunmen also killed an Egyptian with US citizenship in western Baghdad, police Lt. Hamid Zaki said today. The victim, identified as Ahmed Kamal, was shot dead yesterday while driving his car. Zaki said Kamal worked as a contractor with Iraq’s Electricity Ministry. Egyptian and US embassy officials had no immediate comment.

A US soldier was killed yesterday when a roadside bomb exploded near a military patrol in northern Iraq in the province of Kirkuk, the military said today. At least 1,669 US military members have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003.

Iraqi police shot at a suicide car bomber, whose vehicle still exploded at a western Baghdad checkpoint today, wounding three police and three bystanders, a police official said.

In a bid to combat the insurgency, particularly in Baghdad where suicide bombings and drive-by shootings are almost daily occurrences, Iraqi authorities have launched a US-backed counterinsurgency campaign dubbed Operation Lightning.

The US Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, which oversees military operations in the capital, provided figures showing that 887 suspected insurgents have been detained and 38 weapons caches uncovered since the operation began May 22.

Sunni Muslim organisations are complaining that many innocent Iraqis have been arrested during the blitz and most were Sunnis, the minority that dominated the country during Saddam’s rule and are believed to form the insurgency’s backbone.

“There is an improvement in security and in the performance of the security forces, but members of the army and police do cause mistakes,” Laith Kuba, spokesman for Iraq’s prime minister, said.

The charges of overzealous behaviour by security forces coincides with government efforts to include Sunni Arabs in the political process, and to get them involved in drafting Iraq’s new constitution. Sunni approval is necessary for the charter’s adoption in a national referendum. It is to be ready by mid-August and approved nationwide in an October vote.

Iraqi authorities believe Saddam loyalists and Sunni extremists are responsible for most of the attacks, which are designed to topple the new government that is dominated by Shiites and Kurds, communities long oppressed under the former Iraqi president’s three-decade rule.

Iraqi officials have been saying Saddam’s trial should start within two months. They also believe giving the dictator, who was captured December 2003, his day in court and airing the allegations levelled against him will help take the wind out of the insurgency.

The special tribunal trying Saddam provided a list of 14 cases saying the allegations against him included:

:: Executing at least 50 Iraqis in the Shiite town Dujail, 50 miles north of Baghdad in 1982 in retaliation for a failed assassination attempt against Saddam;

:: Killing and deporting 8,000 members of the powerful Kurdish Barzani tribe, of which the current Kurdistan Democratic Party leader, Massoud Barzani, belongs;

:: The 1988 chemical weapons attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja that killed an estimated 5,000 people;

:: Executing prominent religious and political figures;

:: Ordering the seven-month occupation of Kuwait that was ended by the 1991 US-led Gulf War; and

:: The 1991 suppression of a Shiite uprising in southern Iraq.

Meanwhile, Australia’s top Sunni Muslim cleric, who is in Iraq trying to negotiate the release of Australian hostage Douglas Wood, 63, said Monday he has seen footage of the captive indicating that he is alive, not the man himself.

“I have seen a recent CD video lasting 12 to 15 minutes where Wood is alive and good and in honest hands,” Sheik Taj El Din al-Hilaly said of California-based Wood, who was captured by insurgents in late April.