| Page 2 of 3 < > |
Hussein Trial Halts Again, Setting Off Wave of Criticism
Deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein addressing the court in December. Yesterday's hearing was to have been the first session in roughly a month.
(Pool Photo/by John Moore Via Associated Press)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
"They reopen the trial really quickly, and they execute him really quickly," she said. "It sounds terribly cruel, but they can't go on like this indefinitely. It's becoming nothing but a shambles."
Talabani, an ethnic Kurd and former rebel leader, drew criticism late last year for saying the evidence already presented against Hussein warranted his hanging.
In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, scores of men and women -- most of them religious students -- rallied Tuesday to demand a better trial and a speedy execution.
"The court has been an auditorium for the political speeches of Hussein and his political henchmen," said Ali Abdul Hussein, 29, a student at Najaf's Islamic University.
"We want this court to be an Iraqi one," added Hussein Ahmed, 26, another student at the university. "Iraqis still feel the pain caused by Saddam. The court shouldn't be American."
"We want to see him and his men hanged in the streets," said Amina Hasan, a 66-year-old woman who said her 22-year-old son was executed by Hussein's government.
The United States has made the prosecution of Hussein -- accused of presiding over the killings of hundreds of thousands of Shiites and Kurds -- one of its priorities since U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003. The Bush administration spent hundreds of millions of dollars of a $18.4 billion reconstruction package for Iraq to exhume mass graves and gather forensic evidence. It refurbished courthouses, trained Iraqi judges and provided most of the security for the courts. Americans drafted many of the statutes under which Hussein and his associates are being tried.
Though the United States is a strong opponent of the International Criminal Court, the administration's critics say it should have ensured adequate credibility and help for the Iraqi tribunal by making it international or, at a minimum, moving the trial out of Baghdad.
International qualms about the legality of the proceeding, and about the death sentence that Hussein could face if convicted, have left the United States virtually alone in shepherding his prosecution by the Iraqi government. A U.S. official in Baghdad confirmed last weekend that only the United States and Britain had contributed experts to advise the court on how to prosecute governments for war crimes and other such matters.
The official did not say how many British advisers were taking part; Britain, like other countries, has expressed reluctance to help in the case because it is a capital one.
The U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Regime Crimes Liaison Office run much of the day-to-day arrangements for the trial. Plainclothes security workers, many of them Americans, and Iraqi soldiers guard the turreted, fortress-like former Baath Party headquarters in the American-held Green Zone where the trial is playing out.
The five-member panel hearing the case was thrown into confusion after the trial's last session, on Dec. 22. Chief judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin resigned, complaining of criticism from politicians in Iraq's Shiite-dominated government that he was not reining in Hussein.
