Posted on 12/14/2003 2:19:09 PM PST by kattracks
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec 14, 2003 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- The interim Iraqi government said Sunday it wants to try Saddam Hussein before a special tribunal, but a human rights group voiced deep concern about the legitimacy of the newly established panel. The United States reserved judgment.Iraq's new leaders want Saddam to face the tribunal they established last week specifically to hear cases involving leading members of the Saddam regime accused of genocide and other crimes against humanity.
"We will deal with Saddam Hussein," said Adnan Pachachi, a member of the 25-seat interim Governing Council. "He was an unjust ruler responsible for the deaths of thousands of people."
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said the American-led coalition must still decide on Saddam's status.
"At this point, that has not been determined. We continue to process Saddam at this point in time, and those issues will be resolved in the near future," Sanchez told reporters at the coalition's Baghdad headquarters.
Before Saddam's capture, top U.S. officials in Baghdad had privately acknowledged the former dictator likely would be handed over to the new Iraqi government to stand trial.
Amnesty International, however, criticized the new Iraqi tribunal as flawed. It demanded that Saddam - as commander in chief of Iraq's armed forces - be classified as a prisoner of war.
The legal codes for the new, five-judge tribunal, were based on international law, including existing U.N. war crimes tribunals - such as those for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia - and those used by the International Criminal Court.
The newly established tribunal is expected try cases stemming from mass executions of Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s, as well as the suppression of uprisings by Kurds and Shiite Muslims soon after the 1991 Gulf War.
It also will try cases committed against Iran - Iraq's enemy in a bloody 1980-88 war - and against Kuwait, which Iraq invaded in 1990, sparking the Gulf War.
The Governing Council decree establishing the tribunal left a final decision on using the death penalty to a transitional government scheduled to assume full sovereignty by July 1.
"Saddam will stand a public trial so that the Iraqi people will know his crimes," said Ahmad Chalabi, another member of the Governing Council.
Human rights activists also welcomed Saddam's arrest because of accusations he committed gross human rights violations, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.
"But like any other criminal suspect he is entitled to all relevant safeguards under international law, including the right not to be subjected to torture or ill-treatment, and of course the right to receive a fair trial, a defense lawyer and the minimum safeguards as any other prisoner," said Nicole Shoueiry, a spokeswoman for London-based Amnesty International.
She noted that as Iraq's president, Saddam also had been commander in chief of the military and should therefore be afforded the status a prisoner of war and given prompt access to the international Red Cross.
Human rights groups cautioned that the Iraqi decree establishing the new tribunal was fundamentally flawed because it was proclaimed by an unelected body and without consultation with the Iraqi people or the international community.
Activists also said the decree did not ensure that guilt must be proven beyond reasonable doubt.
"Another concern is the death penalty," Shoueiry said. "He should be punished for his crimes, but the death penalty is not included. That goes without saying."
Like other human rights groups, Amnesty International is vehemently opposed to capital punishment, and has repeatedly called for the abolition of the death penalty throughout the world.
New York-based Human Rights Watch also warned that the new tribunal law lacked key provisions to ensure legitimate and credible trials.
It also said the authorities must not be allowed to mount a political show trial, adding that foreign prosecutors and investigative judges should be called in because the Iraqi judicial system lacked experience in organizing trials "lasting more than a few days."
"It's ... important that the trial is not perceived as vengeful justice," said Kenneth Roth, the group's executive director.
By SLOBODAN LEKIC Associated Press Writer
Earth to Nicole, it's not your call.
.....and the reason for this would be....................?
How about dangling his arms in that plastic shredding machine his son was fond of?
There is no death penalty in the new Iraq. An exception would have to made for Saddam and I don't see that happening.
How ya gonna make us, Shoueiry? How many divisions do you have?
To answer for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Kuwaitis and Kurds butchered by orders from this man, death by execution can be the only way to make him pay for his crimes.
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