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Iraqi PM complains of delay in Saddam case
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-18 09:00
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari complained Monday that the Iraqi
court trying Saddam Hussein took an unjustifiably long time to prepare its case
and brushed aside concerns that the court could be biased against the former
president.
"I don't think there are any more clear-cut crimes in the world than those
committed by Saddam," said the Shiite Muslim leader, five of whose close
relatives, including an older brother, were executed by Saddam's government
in the 1980s and 1990s.
He underlined, however, that the deaths in his family did not mean that he
would get a sense of personal satisfaction if the former ruler is eventually
executed.
"I try to forget what happened to my brother and my cousins. It is never an
issue of revenge or personal malice," al-Jaafari said during a 2 1/2-hour
meeting with journalists over "iftar," the sunset meal Muslims eat to break
their fast during the month of Ramadan.
"I will be ashamed of myself if I allowed myself to exert control over the
judiciary," he said.
Saddam and seven senior members of his 23-year government go on trial
Wednesday. They face charges of ordering the killing in 1982 of nearly 150
people from the mainly Shiite town of Dujail north of Baghdad following a failed
attempt on Saddam's life.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari votes in
the constitutional referendum in Baghdad, Saturday, Oct. 15,
2005.[AP] | Court officials have said they are trying Saddam on the Dujail massacre first
because it was the easiest and quickest case to put together. Other cases they
are investigating — including a crackdown on the Kurds that killed an estimated
180,000 people — involve much larger numbers of victims, more witnesses and more
documentation.
If convicted, Saddam and his co-defendants could face the death penalty, but
they have recourse to appeal before another chamber of the Iraqi Special
tribunal.
Al-Jaafari's Shiite Dawa Party was blamed by the toppled government for the
attempt on Saddam's life in Dujail, a Dawa stronghold. Of the estimated 17 party
members who opened fire on Saddam's motorcade, eight were killed in a shootout
with troops from Saddam's elite Republican Guard. Nine others escaped and fled
to Iran.
Al-Jaafari, who took office in April as the head of a Shiite-Kurdish
coalition, said he wanted Saddam to have a fair and open trial, but made it
clear that he preferred the proceedings not to drag on.
Saddam's government was toppled in April 2003, but the former president was
on the run for eight months before U.S. troops captured him near his hometown of
Tikrit. He has since been kept in a U.S.-run facility thought to be at or near
Baghdad International Airport.
During the briefing inside the Green Zone, the heavily fortified home of
Iraq's government, parliament and the U.S. and British embassies, al-Jaafari
treated some half-dozen reporters to a lavish meal in a covered courtyard
attached to a complex he uses as office and residence.
The silver-bearded prime minister, in a dark blue suit and a matching tie,
mostly spoke in Arabic and English, but broke briefly into Farsi — picked up
during years in exile in Iran — for the benefit of two Western reporters of
Iranian descent.
Al-Jaafari, known for his piety, quoted classical Arabic poetry and praised
the ideas of America's founding fathers. He also thanked the United States for
ridding Iraq of Saddam, supporting the country's transition to democratic rule
and its leadership of the war on terror.
"Saddam is gone and we are moving ahead while he is part of the past," he
said. "His trial would not be the first or last. His case doesn't belong to just
one nation, but the whole world. Iraqis would like to see justice done."
Al-Jaafari said he was puzzled, though, by what he described as the long time
it took the Iraqi Special Tribunal to compile evidence against Saddam in the
Dujail case.
"Everything in Iraq has a case against Saddam. If Iraq's palm trees could
speak, they would have spoken of Saddam's crimes," al-Jaafari said. He said
Saddam committed crimes against the environment, sickening many of Iraq's date
palm trees.
"If we are to do a research project on Saddam's crimes, it will take a
century to complete."
"The Dujail case took enough time," he lamented. "Any more delay will bring
Iraq, the judiciary and the government into question. It's the right of every
Iraqi citizen to ask why it took so long to prepare the Dujail case."
Asked whether his comments could be seen as an attempt to influence the court
to speed up its proceedings, al-Jaafari said: "I am not interfering in the
court's business and I am not trying to put pressure on the court or influence
it. On the contrary, I want it to exercise its authority both seriously and with
transparency."
Saddam and his co-defendants are expected to hear the charges against them
during Wednesday's hearing, and the court will address procedural matters. The
trial is then expected to be adjourned for several weeks.
The Iraqi Special Tribunal that will try Saddam was set up during the
U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, which formally ended in June 2004. Although its
statute was endorsed by Iraq's democratically elected parliament, critics have
questioned the court's legitimacy.
Last week, the New York-based Human Rights Watch warned that the tribunal
"runs the risk of "violating international standards for fair trials."
"In Iraq's fragile political climate, the legitimacy of the court will be in
question," it said in a statement. There have also been demands that Saddam be
tried before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.
Al-Jaafari rebutted these complaints, arguing that Saddam's crimes were
mostly against the Iraqi people, so he should be tried by Iraqis.
"Why cannot a man who committed crimes against his own people be tried by the
same people? Iraq's judiciary is just."
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