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Saddam trial judge Amin plans to quit
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-01-14 11:19
After several hearings late last month, Amin was criticized by some observers
for allowing Saddam to speak at length, making allegations, including of his
maltreatment at American hands.
The judge, whose dry wit and courteous manner have been features of the trial
since its first day, has rejected the criticism and insisted the defense should
have a fair hearing.
HELICOPTER DOWNED
Rebels in northern Iraq apparently shot down an armed U.S. reconnaissance
helicopter, killing its two pilots, in a rare instance of American air power
being challenged by guerrillas.
"The indicators are that it was due to hostile fire," said Lieutenant General
John Vines, the deputy U.S. commander in Iraq. Witnesses at the scene in the
city of Mosul said they saw fighters fire on the two-seater aircraft with heavy
machineguns.
Six days earlier, all 12 people aboard were killed when a Black Hawk
helicopter went down close to the nearby northern city of Tal Afar, though that
has so far been blamed on weather.
Vines warned that violence may increase once the results of last month's
parliamentary election are announced next week.
Many minority Sunni Arabs, whose community has fostered the insurgency, have
complained of fraud in the December 15 vote, and an informal truce to encourage
Sunnis to vote after their boycott of a previous poll last January has been
widely broken.
An almost final tally of parliamentary seats, obtained by Reuters, confirmed
that Sunni parties will have about a fifth of the seats in the 275-member
chamber, while the dominant Shi'ite Islamist Alliance will fall only a few seats
short of retaining the slim absolute majority it currently enjoys.
With six seats yet to be allocated, the Alliance and their present Kurdish
coalition partners were also one seat short of the two-thirds majority needed to
change the constitution, figures provided by a source at the Electoral
Commission showed.
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