Saddam lawyers told to pick up his effects

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein's lawyers have been asked to pick up his personal effects but Iraq's Justice Ministry denied it had taken custody of the former president and dismissed a U.S. suggestion he would hang as early as Saturday.

One defense lawyer, who declined to be identified, said Saddam had been handed over by U.S. forces to Iraqi government custody. U.S. military spokesmen said they had nothing to add to a statement late on Thursday that he was still in their control.

Asked about comments from the defense lawyer that Saddam had been handed over, Deputy Justice Minister Bosho Ibrahim told Reuters: "This is not true. He is still with the Americans."

He also dismissed a remark by a senior U.S. official who said there were plans to send Saddam to the gallows as early as Saturday. The ministry, which is in charge of implementing court rulings, would not execute Saddam before January 26, he said.

Khalil al-Dulaimi, who led Saddam's defense team until he was sentenced on November 5, told Reuters: "The Americans called me and asked me to pick up the personal effects."

On Thursday, Saddam was allowed to see two of his half-brothers, who are also in detention at a U.S. base near Baghdad. A lawyer said the former president was in high spirits.

U.S. military and embassy spokesmen dealing with the issue said they had nothing to add to a statement late on Thursday which said Saddam was still in U.S. custody and stressed the need for secrecy over arrangements for security reasons.

Although legally in Iraqi custody, U.S. troops physically keep guard over Saddam. And although Iraqis will carry out the execution, U.S. and Iraqi officials say, it seems likely U.S. forces will stay on hand throughout for fear that opponents of the former leader could turn it into a public spectacle.

Iraqi officials backed away on Thursday from suggestions they would definitely hang him within a month, in line with a 30-deadline set out in the statues of the tribunal. A cabinet minister told Reuters a week-long religious holiday ending only on January 7 would stall any execution.

Saddam's lawyer said he bade farewell to two of his half brothers on Thursday in a rare prison meeting.

"He was in very high spirits and clearly readying himself," Badie Aref, a defense lawyer, told Reuters after the 69-year-old former leader met half-brothers Watban and Sabawi, who are also both held at the U.S. army's Camp Cropper near Baghdad airport.

"He told them he was happy he would meet his death at the hands of his enemies and be a martyr, not just languish in jail.

The novelty of the U.S.-sponsored process by which Saddam and his third half-brother Barzan, along with another senior member of the Baath party, were condemned on November 5 has left considerable room for wrangling over the timing of any execution among rival factions and between Washington and Baghdad.

"It's none of the Americans' business to decide when," one justice ministry official said on Friday.

Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had previously said he wanted Saddam hanged this year for the killings, torture and other crimes against fellow Shi'ites in the town of Dujail.

But some of Saddam's fellow Sunnis have warned this could reinforce their community's alienation and many ethnic Kurds want Saddam first convicted of genocide against them in a second trial that is still underway.

Iraq's Saddam-era penal code bars executions on religious holidays. Eid al-Adha holiday, which follows the annual haj pilgrimage to Mecca, runs until January 7 in Iraq.

Nonetheless, the U.S. official in the United States said Saddam could be hanged within days: "I've heard that it's going to be a couple more days, probably."

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Dubai, Ibon Villelabeitia in Baghdad)

Saddam says `goodbye' to countrymen

NBC Breaking: Saddam Hussein to be hanged within 36 Hours

Saddam lawyers told to pick up his effects

Iraqi Judge: Saddam Dead By Saturday

(CBS News) BAGHDAD Saddam Hussein has been transferred from U.S. custody, his lawyers said, and an Iraqi judge authorized to attend the former dictator's hanging said he would be executed no later than Saturday.

The physical hand-over of Saddam to Iraqi authorities was believed to be one of the last steps before he was to be hanged, although the lawyers' statement did not specifically say Saddam was in Iraqi hands.

"A few minutes ago we received correspondence from the Americans saying that President Saddam Hussein is no longer under the control of U.S. forces," according to the statement faxed to The Associated Press.

"Saddam will be executed today or tomorrow," said Munir Haddad, a judge on the appeals court that upheld Saddam's death sentence. "All the measures have been done."

Haddad is authorized to attend the execution on behalf of the judiciary.

"I am ready to attend and there is no reason for delays," Haddad said.

Lawyers representing Saddam Hussein say the condemned former leader is no longer in U.S. custody.

U.S. forces are on high alert as Iraq braces for the execution of Saddam Hussein.

A Pentagon spokesman says troops will evaluate what may lead to an increase in violence. A suicide bomber killed nine people today near a Shiite mosque north of Baghdad. At least 72 Iraqis were killed in violence Thursday.

A U.S. military officer told CBS News national security correspondent David Martin Thursday that Saddam Hussein would be turned over to the Iraqi government prior to being executed. Martin reported the officer expects that the Iraqis will execute their former leader before the start of the Eid religious holiday on Sunday.

Al-Dulaimi, speaking from Amman, Jordan, said he could not say when the handover will be, or when Saddam's expected execution will happen.

Al-Dulaimi warned that turning over Saddam to the Iraqis would increase the sectarian violence that already is tearing the country apart.

"If the American administration insists in handing the president to the Iraqis, it would commit a great strategic mistake which would lead to the escalation of the violence in Iraq and the eruption of a destructive civil war," he said.

Issam Ghazzawi, another member of Saddam's defense team, said there was no way of knowing when Saddam's execution would take place.

"The only person who can predict the execution of the president ... is God and Bush," Ghazzawi said on Thursday.

Saddam is being held at the American military prison known as Camp Cropper. U.S. and Iraqi authorities have said he must be handed over to Iraqi officials prior to his execution.

"Press reports that he has been handed over are not correct," Bosho Ibrahim, Iraq's deputy justice minister, said late Friday morning local time.

Armand Cucciniello, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, said he could not say whether Saddam had been transferred to Iraqi authorities.

"It's up to the government of Iraq to carry out the execution," Cucciniello said.

National Security adviser Mouffak al Rubaie said fear of reprisals by Saddam loyalists has kept the date of the execution secret, he strongly indicated to CBS News that Saddam's execution is imminent.

"I think the sooner the better," al Rubaie told CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston.

Whenever it occurs, Saddam's execution is likely to cause an uproar across the Arab world.

"It will be a huge shock to the people in the Arab world," Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al Arabi, told CBS' The Early Show. "I think people will be shocked and dismayed by this execution.

On Tuesday, an Iraqi appeals court upheld Saddam's death sentence for the killing of 148 people who were detained after an attempt to assassinate him in the northern Iraqi city of Dujail in 1982. The court said the former president should be hanged within 30 days.

Thursday, Saddam's chief lawyer urged the United States not to hand the ousted leader over to Iraqi authorities before his expected execution because he is a "war prisoner."

Al-Dulaimi called on international and legal organizations, including the Arab League and United Nations, to "rapidly prevent" the Americans from handing Saddam to the Iraqis.

"According to the international conventions it is forbidden to hand a prisoner of war to his adversary," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Pinkston reported Iraqis, members of the coalition and international representatives will witness the execution.

Iraqi officials have said that Saddam's final moments will be videotaped by the government.

"We will video everything," al Rubaie said. "All documentation will be videoed. Taking him from his cell to the execution is going to be videoed, and the actual execution will be documented and videoed."

It's not clear whether the videotape will be broadcast on Iraqi television.

An Iraqi government official says efforts are under way to carry out the death sentence by the end of this month, indicating that they want to do the execution before Eid, which coincides with the New Year.

A top government official disputed the court's ruling that Saddam must be hanged within 30 days, saying the execution should be held after that time period. The comment comes amid debate over other legal procedures such as whether the presidency is required to approve the execution.

"The law does not say within 30 days, it says after the lapse of 30 days," said Busho Ibrahim, deputy justice minister. There was no immediate explanation for the conflicting claims.

In a farewell letter posted on the Internet Wednesday, Saddam urged Iraqis to embrace "brotherly coexistence" and not to hate the U.S.-led troops.

"I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking," said the letter.

Saddam is in the midst of another trial, one in which he's charged with genocide and other crimes during a 1987-88 military crackdown on Kurds in northern Iraq. An estimated 180,000 Kurds died during the operation. That trial was adjourned until Jan. 8, and experts have said the trial of Saddam's co-defendants is likely to continue even if he is executed.

Human Rights Watch, an international watchdog group, says Saddam was certainly a human rights violator, but Iraq's government shouldn't execute him. "The true test of respect for human rights comes when the human rights of someone who has violated in unspeakable ways the human rights of many millions of people comes into play," said the group's Richard Dicker.

In other recent developments in Iraq:

• A suicide bomber killed nine civilians north of Baghdad on Friday afternoon, police said. At least a dozen people were also injured when the bomber detonated his explosives belt in Khalis, 50 miles north of the Iraqi capital, police said.

• Two Iranian diplomats detained by U.S. troops in Iraq were released early Friday in Baghdad, Iran's state-run television and news agency reported. The Iranians were in Iraq on the invitation of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, officials have said. Their detention was announced on Monday.

• The U.S. military announced five more American troop deaths: four soldiers hit by roadside bombs on patrol and a Marine killed in combat in volatile western Iraq. That raises U.S. troop deaths this month to 100.

• As of Thursday, Dec. 28, 2006, at least 2,991 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The British military has reported 126 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 18; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, six; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia, three; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Romania, one death each.

• In search of a new U.S. strategy on Iraq, President Bush met at his ranch Thursday morning with his top national security advisers. Afterwards, he said he's making good progress in coming up with a new plan for Iraq, reports CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller.

• In a 2004 interview embargoed for release after his death, former president Gerald Ford told the Washington Post the war in Iraq was unjustified and that he very strongly disagreed with President Bush's reasons for attacking Iraq.

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