BAGHDAD - A judge trying Saddam Hussein for the killing of 148 Shi'ite
villagers in the 1980s will set a date on Monday for a verdict in a case that
carries the maximum penalty of death by hanging, court officials said.
A year after the case opened in a U.S.-backed courtroom in Baghdad, chief
judge Raouf Abdel Rahman will hold a closed session to review witness
testimonies and evidence and announce a final date for a verdict for former
Iraqi president Saddam and seven of his top lieutenants for crimes against
humanity.
Ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein
addresses the court during his trial in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green
Zone October 11, 2006. [Reuters] |
"The judge needs to review procedural and administrative issues and set a
final date to announce the verdict," chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi told
Reuters on Sunday.
"The verdict is not tomorrow. There will be no defendants, no lawyers. I
think the verdict will be 20 days from tomorrow."
Prosecutors have asked for the death penalty to be imposed if Saddam is found
guilty in the killing of 148 Shi'ites after an attempt on his life in the
village of Dujail in 1982.
Saddam is also on trial separately on charges of genocide for a military
operation against the country's ethnic Kurds in the late 1980s that killed tens
of thousands.
Saddam, 69, has acknowledged in court that he ordered trials that led to
execution of dozens of Shi'ites after the assassination attempt but said he
acted within the law.
Iraqi law states an execution must be by hanging. Saddam has said he deserves
to meet this fate by firing squad rather than the gallows.
But any execution could be delayed by lengthy appeals and by the up to a
dozen other cases the toppled leader could face.
SADDAM LETTER
Saddam struck a typically defiant tone in an open letter dictated to his
chief lawyer Khalil Dulaimi during a four-hour meeting on Saturday in his
prison.
Saddam said Iraqis should put aside differences and set only one goal - to
drive U.S. troops out of Iraq.
"Victory is at hand but don't forget that your near-term goal is confined to
liberating your country from the forces of occupation," Saddam said in the
letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters on Sunday.
Saddam has dismissed the Iraqi High Tribunal, set up by a U.S. occupying
administration after the 2003 invasion to oust him, as a sham. He has said a
guilty verdict has already been concocted by his political enemies now in power.
Prosecutors in the Dujail trial have also asked for the death penalty for
three other co-accused, including Barzan al-Tikriti, Saddam's former
intelligence chief and half-brother.
The trial, which U.S. and Iraqi officials had hoped would project a new image
of democracy in Iraq, has been marred by the killing of three defence lawyers, a
number of hunger strikes by Saddam and the resignation of a previous judge, who
accused the Shi'ite-led government of political pressure.
Some international legal groups have said raging violence between Saddam's
fellow minority Sunnis and majority Shi'ites, and an unrelenting Sunni
insurgency, makes a fair trial almost impossible.
They have called for a trial to be held in a third country.
