Hussein Goes on Trial Tomorrow

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By JOHN F. BURNS

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 17 - On Wednesday, 22 months after he was dragged from his hiding place in an underground bunker, Saddam Hussein will appear in an Iraqi court to answer for the brutalities he inflicted on his fellow Iraqis. But what should be a moment of triumph for his victims is instead stirring concern about the fairness and competence of the court itself.

The special Iraqi tribunal established to conduct the trial has chosen a case that many Iraqis believe to be too narrow to answer the widespread yearning for Mr. Hussein to be held to account for the most savage of his crimes. And the political pressure to hasten the trial has forced the tribunal to accelerate some of the work needed to prepare for other cases involving tens of thousands of victims, nearly 300 mass graves and about 40 tons of documents gathered from the government agencies that oversaw his repression.

While many Iraqis are eager for the moment when they see Mr. Hussein in the dock, Western human rights groups and legal experts have warned that the former dictator is unlikely to get a fair trial, and that the probable outcome, a death sentence, will be what the tribunal's harshest critics have described as "victor's justice."

Full Story (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/international/middleeast/18saddam.html?ex=1287288000&en=636a60876dd23299&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)

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Partly, critics have focused on the pervasive American involvement in organizing, financing and guiding the tribunal. That involvement has extended to providing the $138 million that has been used partly to remodel the former Baath Party headquarters in Baghdad into a courthouse with two side-by-side, state-of-the-art courtrooms, and partly to support a team of 50 American, British and Australian lawyers, investigators, forensic experts and archivists in the liaison office.


$138 million????? Quit wasting my money!

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He deserves a death sentence.

Referring the case to another court then the U.N's war crimes tribunal in Switzerland was a demand of the Iraqui people, that I agreed with. The official war crimes court is in Switzerland, that does not believe in the death penalty, which is a crock. Slobadon Malosavich gets to spend the rest of his life in a nice warm jail cell with good food, after making 2 million muslims disappear. He should have been hung like we hanged the nazi's.

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Did you see hinm arguing with the judge? I still don't understand why the world has to try him at all. We should have just done to him what he did to all those people.

From The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,16518,1596139,00.html):

Echoing the defiance he showed when first charged last year, Saddam refused to give his name when asked to confirm his identity. "I am the president of Iraq," he said. "You know me," he told Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin, a Kurd. When the session opened, he stood and asked Amin: "Who are you? I want to know who you are."

Denouncing the American invasion and making it clear he was appealing to a world audience, he said: "I do not respond to this so-called court, with all due respect to its people, and I retain my constitutional right as the president of Iraq." Brushing off the judge's attempts to interrupt him, he declared: "Neither do I recognise the body that has designated and authorised you, nor the aggression, because all that has been built on a false basis." Later he objected to being referred to as "former" president.

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"Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin, a Kurd", I can only image what hes thinking of Saddam's rantings, probly imagining him being slowly tortured in his head.

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Watching the video, it's amazing how he sat there so patiently as Saddam carried on. I don't know how he did it.

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What made me laugh was that he was smiling and joking with his former aids.

He basically mocked the judge and when he stated that he didn't recognise "this court" it just made me laugh. He's been sat on his butt for over 2 years now, complying to all that the US asked him to do. Now he goes to court, he's going to play up.

I think this could be one hell of a long case, beating OJ's case by miles. Its going to be interesting to see what happens as from Next Month.