Charges are expected to include crimes against humanity
Saddam Husseinhas questioned the legitimacy of the tribunal set up to try him during his first appearance in the dock.
Theformer Iraqi president on Thursday signalled his refusal to cooperateafter seven chargesagainst him were read out in the militarytribunal before which he and his 11 co-accusedare to be tried.
Accordingto Aljazeera correspondent Abd al-Adhim Muhammad, the formerpresidentasked:”How do you bring me to this place withoutany defence attorney?”
Whenasked by the judge to identify himself, Saddam answered, “I am SaddamHussein al-Majid, the president of the republic of Iraq.” Saddamrefused to say “Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq.”
When askedto identify his place of residencehe replied: “I live in each Iraqi’s house.”
Kuwait invasion
Saddam also defendedhis 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Dressedin grey and appearing healthier andbetter turned-outthanwhen he was captured,he declared, “Kuwait is an Iraqi territory.It was not an invasion.”
“I am Saddam Hussein al-Majid, the president of the republic of Iraq”
Saddam Hussein,Former Iraqi presiden
Also,according to reporters who attended the 30-minute hearing whichauthorities allowed to be filmed without sound, Saddam called theKuwaitis “dogs” and referred to the tribunal as”a playaimedat Bush’s chances ofwinning the US presidentialelections.”He also said the “the criminal is Bush”.
Respondingto Saddam’scomments, Kuwait’s information ministersaidtheformer leaderis a “war criminal who committedgenocide against the Iraqi and Kuwaiti people.”
“We demand that he face the maximum punishment, which is death for his crimes,” Muhammad Abu al-Hasan told reporters.
Exchange with the judge
Accordingto our correspondent, Saddam asked the judge to identify himself andasked him from wherehe obtained his degree in law. He also askedhim if he was an authentic judge and what laws are he using.
Kuwait minister of information says Saddam is “a war criminal”
The judge said “I have worked since the former regime and I have been nominated by coalition authorities.”
Saddam then mocked the judge and said “this means you are applying the invaders’ laws to try me”.
Saddamalsodebated the judge saying, “You are a lawman and I am a lawman too andwe have to talk according to the law”.Secrecy
Earlier,an armoured bus flanked by four Humvees and an ambulance transportedthe former president to a secret location to face the charges.
Uponarrival, he was led into a building by two Iraqi prison guards, whilesix more guards stood to attention at the door. Saddam’s firstappearance in a special Iraqi court was shrouded in secrecy, with onlya small pool of journalists and officials allowed access.
“Saddamentered the courtroom at 2:25pm (11:25 GMT). It was a small courtroomand there were a limited number of journalists and some officials likeMuwafaq al-Rubaee. He was weak and pale and could be hardlyheard,” said Abd al-Adhim Muhammad. In addition to Saddam,11 former officials were due to appear before Iraq’s special tribunal on Thursday.
Charges
Chargesagainst the deposed Iraqi leader and 11 ofhisseniorofficials are expected to include war crimes andgenocide, as well as crimes against humanity, but it is not yet clearwhat offences each individual will be charged with.
“We demand that he face the maximum punishment, which is death for his crimes”Muhammad Abu al-Hasan,Kuwaiti information minister
According to Aljazeera’s correspondent,the judge raised seven accusations against Saddam including:
Intentionally killing civilians using chemical weaponsin Halabja, north of Iraq. Intentionally killing civilians without trial Intentionally killing Barazanis in 1983 Intentionally killing men of religion Intentionally killing civilians in al-Anfal operations against Kurds innorthern Iraq Intentionally killing civilians in the south of Iraq in 1991 Invasion of Kuwait The proceedings were televised but not broadcast live.
Theywere taking place near Baghdad international airport, where the USmilitary is thought to have held the 12 men in solitary confinement ata detention centre.
No formal indictment
Saddam had no lawyers to represent him at the arraignment. Formal indictments may not be ready for months.
Similarproceedings were to be held later for his former aides, includingformer Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and Hasan Ali al-Majid, dubbedChemical Ali by the US for his alleged role in using poison gas againstKurds and Iranians.
The US military,which had held Saddam and his lieutenants as prisoners of war, handedthem over to Iraqi legal custody on Wednesday, but will continuetohold physical custody.
Saddam,accused of ordering the killing and torture of thousands of peopleduring 35 years of Baathist rule, was captured by US forces in Decembernear his hometown of Tikrit after eight months on the run following his9 April overthrow.
The public last glimpsed him, dishevelled and with a bushy beard, in television footage shot soon after his capture.
Bread & Circus Trials In Iraq – Justice As Photo-Op
By RobertFiskThe Independent
http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk07012004.html
Nowit is time for bread and circuses. Keep the people distracted. Showthem Saddam. Remind them what it used to be like. Make them grateful.Make Saddam pay. Show his face once more across the world so that hisvictims will think about the past, not the present. Charge him. Beforethe full majesty of Iraq’s new “democratic” law. And may George Bushwin the next American election.
That’spretty much how it looked from Baghdad yesterday. Forget the 12-hourpower cuts and the violence and the kidnappings and the insurgency.Let’s go back again to the gruesome days of Baathist rule, let’srevisit once more the theatre of cruelty–back to all those war crimesand crimes against humanity with which the Monster will be charged.Let’s take another look at Tariq Aziz and “Chemical” Ali and the rest.Isn’t this why we came to Iraq–to rescue the Iraqis from the Beast ofBaghdad?
When Saddam was”handed over” yesterday to Iraqi officials by the Americans –we don’tknow how–he apparently wanted to know if he would have the right to alawyer (never a previous concern of his where prisoners wereconcerned). Salem Chalabi, a close relative of the convicted fraudsterand former Pentagon favourite Ahmed Chalabi, is leading the Iraqitribunal’s work. So no surprise Saddam asked for counsel.
Saddamwas freighted up from his close security prison cell in Qatar for hismeeting with “Iraqi justice”–exactly what that means was not clearalthough most Western journalists used the phrase–and will today facean Iraqi judge who will formally accuse the ex-dictator of war crimesand crimes against humanity. The trouble is, we haven’t got the chargesagainst Saddam quite put together yet. It will take at least a year todecide the exact details of what he’s going to be accused of.
Thegassing of Halabja? Of course. The mass killings of Shia after the 1991rising? No doubt. The torture of innocent Iraqis at Saddam’s Abu Ghraibprison? Although that might not be a place name that the tribunal–orthe Americans–want to hear right now. And will the death penalty beused? Quite possibly–at least, that’s what an awful lot of Iraqiswould like. It was, after all, Saddam’s favourite punishment. Could”Chemical” Ali of Halabja notoriety escape such a sentence?
Thenthere’s the little problem of the Iraqi tribunal whose “judges” allturn out to be lawyers without, apparently, any judicial skills. Manyare Iraqis who spent years in exile–the kind with whom a growingnumber of Iraqis who stayed and endured Saddam’s rule are increasinglydisenchanted. A judge, so we are told, will formally read a writtentext against Saddam. We don’t know where. We don’t even knowwhen–today presumably. The old “occupying” power–in other words thenew “occupying” power if you find the country’s new independence a bithard to swallow–has let it be known that there may be “media access”when Saddam appears.
So oneof those familiar “pools” will no doubt be created–I will put my betson CNN and the loony right Fox News as certainties–and we’ll all beable to study Saddam at the critical moment when he begins to “face upto his crimes”, or whatever clich