The acting President of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council twice evoked the possibility of the death penalty for Saddam Hussein during an official visit to Paris yesterday.
"The Iraqi president will be tried by an Iraqi tribunal," Mr Sayyid Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the Shia cleric who now holds the council's rotating presidency, said as he left a meeting with President Jacques Chirac.
"If it is proven that he is guilty, and that the clauses of the law apply to him, he could be condemned to capital punishment." The Governing Council last week established a tribunal to try members of the fallen Baathist regime for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is to convene in the former museum which Saddam dedicated to his own life in Baghdad.
But human rights groups have criticised the creation of the Iraqi tribunal as a US subterfuge intended to ensure the execution of Saddam despite broad international opposition to capital punishment.
It is also seen as an attempt by Washington to undermine progress towards an international justice system.
"It will be difficult to find \ jurists with the right combination of skills and emotional distance from the former dictatorship to produce trials that are fair," Mr Kenneth Roth, the director of Human Rights Watch, wrote in the New York Times.
"There will be advisers, international personalities who will be present," Mr Sayyid al-Hakim said in response to such criticisms. "The sessions will be public, and the rights of the defence will be respected." Mr Sayyid al-Hakim, with three other members of the Governing Council, and two US-appointed Iraqi ministers are visiting European capitals in an attempt to gain international recognition for interim Iraqi institutions.
The group started in Madrid and will move from Paris to Berlin and Rome.
Mr Hoshyar Zebari, the acting Foreign Minister, was the first to leave the 1½-hour meeting with Mr Chirac, en route for the airport and New York. He is to brief members of the UN Security Council today on a proposed time-table for a political transition in Iraq.
Having initially refused to recognise the Governing Council, Paris now advocates that the US turn power over to them. "You have to work with what exists, and what exists is represented by the council," explained Mr Chirac's spokeswoman, Ms Catherine Colonna.
Earlier in the day, the French Foreign Minister, Mr Dominique de Villepin, said transforming the Iraqi bodies into a "provisional government" on November 15th had been "a step in the right direction". Mr de Villepin made a conciliatory gesture towards Washington when he said that Paris could cancel some of Iraq's $3 billion debt to France "if the conditions are right".
The former US secretary of state, Mr James Baker, who is trying to restructure an overall Iraqi debt of $125 billion is to meet with Mr Chirac today at the request of President George W. Bush.
French officials were careful not to overreact to the announcement last week that countries who did not participate in the war would not be allowed to bid for $18.6 billion in reconstruction contracts financed by US taxpayers. But they see US hints that French companies could do business in Iraq if Paris forgave the country's debt as a none too subtle form of blackmail.
Washington's desire for debt forgiveness is countered by French insistence on empowering the Iraqis.
"France is convinced that the destiny of Iraq belongs to Iraqis," President Chirac said during his meeting with the delegation.