Kuwait Draws Up Charges Against Saddam

Associated Press via Newsday ^ | May 11, 2005 | Diana Elias

[WmShirerAdmirer]

KUWAIT CITY -- Kuwaiti prosecutors have drawn up a list of charges against ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and hundreds of his officials for alleged war crimes committed during Iraq's occupation of the Gulf nation, the prosecutor general said Wednesday.

The list will be delivered to the Iraqi court that will try Saddam and other former regime members and the new charges will be added to the existing allegations, prosecutor general Hamed al-Othman said, according to the state-owned Kuwait News Agency. Saddam, who was captured in December 2003, already faces charges in Iraq that include killing rival politicians during his 30-year rule, gassing Kurds, invading Kuwait and suppressing Kurdish and Shiite uprisings in 1991 after the U.S.-led Gulf War that liberated Kuwait.

The Kuwaiti charges include allegations that Saddam's regime kidnapped 605 Kuwaitis and nationals of other countries who lived in the oil-rich state at the time of the 1990-91 occupation, al-Othman said. The remains of 147 of them were found in mass graves in Iraq after Saddam was toppled in April 2003.

Another 5,733 were tortured by electric shock, beaten, starved and sexually abused, and 139 were seriously injured by shooting or by land mines planted by Iraqis, he added.

The Kuwaiti charges are against Saddam and nine other senior regime figures -- including Ali Hassan al-Majid, who ruled Kuwait during the seven-month occupation; Tariq Aziz, Saddam's foreign minister; and Taha Yassin Ramadan, who served as vice president. The three men are in U.S. custody awaiting trial.

[WmShirerAdmirer]

Hopefully there won't be much left of Saddam Hussein after his own country men get through with him. The Kuwaitis will just have to get to the back of a very, long line to extract their revenge.

[piasa]

The 605 Kuwaits were kidnapped during the Iraqi occupation, then tortured, experimented on and or killed in the years following the invasion and occupation. There have been multiple UN resolutions against Iraq ever since relating to Iraq's failure to return these Kuwaiti prisoners.

As a side note, an American [of Kurdish descent, I believe] was arrested by Iraq in the late 1990s and was imprisoned and tortured through the remainder of the Clinton administration with little news coverage.

[andie74]

Unfortunate, though, that the Kuwaitis probably won't get a piece of the action. Talk about justice being served...I think they'd do a pretty good job of it.

[rdl6989]

bump

[Ukiapah Heep]

Looks like it's time for a little good old Islamic justice for Saddam. You know how keen our liberals are for respect for third world cultures!