IRAQ: Ex-dictator to be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity writes Lara Marlowe in Baghdad
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein will be arraigned on 12 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity today, along with 11 of his former lieutenants.
The interim Iraqi government sworn in on Tuesday took legal custody of Saddam yesterday morning. The office of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi issued a one-line statement saying that the "transfer" took place at 10.15 a.m.
Saddam remains in the physical custody of the US military and will not face trial until well into next year - after US and Iraqi elections.
The "transfer" involved a visit by Salem Chalabi, the US-trained lawyer who set up the Iraqi Special Tribunal, and a judge. They informed Saddam of his rights and read the charge sheet to him. Chalabi told CNN that Saddam appeared shocked when he was told to save his questions for the court session today.
The hearing will be closed to the public and all but a few television cameras, who will provide the first images of Saddam since he was captured on December 13th.
The Iraqi Special Tribunal, where Saddam's arraignment will take place, is an octagonal building known as the Baghdad Clock Tower. It was built by Saddam as a museum for the gifts he received and has elaborate marble floors, chandeliers and wood panelling.
The Iraqi judge who will formally charge Saddam and his cohorts is expected to be Ra'id Juhi (33). Juhi, a Shia Muslim, has been an investigating judge for 10 years. Last August, he issued an arrest warrant for Sheikh Moqtada al-Sadr. The US military made the warrant public in April, when al-Sadr rebelled against US forces.
Saddam is believed to be held at Camp Cropper, the US-run prison at Baghdad Airport, or in the Gulf sheikhdom of Qatar, site of the US regional command. Although his status has now shifted from POW to that of a prisoner of the Iraqi government, the International Red Cross will continue to visit him.
Charges against Saddam derive from four main events: Iraq's invasion of Iran in 1980 and the eight-year war that ensued; the lethal gassing of 5,000 Kurds at Halabja in 1988; the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the brutal suppression of the Kurdish and Shia uprising that followed the 1991 Gulf War.
In his own defence, Saddam is likely to point out that the US and Europe welcomed the invasion of Iran and provided him with military intelligence and weapons. The US State Department instructed its diplomats to blame Iran, not Iraq, for the gassing of the Kurds. Conspiracy theorists claim that April Glaspie, the US ambassador to Baghdad in 1990, encouraged Saddam to invade Kuwait by telling him the US "would not intervene in an Arab-Arab dispute".
The Kurds and Shia rose up in response to an appeal by the first President Bush, father of the current US president, who then allowed the defeated Saddam to use helicopter gunships to massacre them.
Saddam's wife Sajida has hired a team of 20 international lawyers to defend him, but they will not be present at his arraignment. Issam Ghazaoui, a Jordanian lawyer who is part of the group, told AFP that the Iraqi justice minister, Malik Dohan al-Hassan, telephoned him and said, "If you and your colleagues think you can come to Iraq to defend Saddam, not only will we kill you; we'll cut you to pieces." The minister said he had not threatened Ghazaoui but "simply told him that if he wanted to defend Saddam, he should come to Iraq first to see the mass graves."
Repeated statements by Prime Minister Allawi and other officials that Saddam deserves the death penalty have created doubts he will receive a fair trial. "We will be very happy to see him in court," said Sheikh Abu Zahra Ibrahim, a Shia Muslim leader. "But we want a real trial. We have the impression it's like a theatre; that everything was prepared beforehand."