100 Saddam Regime Officials to Be Tried

A man kisses the grave of Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, who had been executed along with Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief, Monday in Baghdad, at daybreak Tuesday Jan 16, 2007, in Ouja, 115 kilometers (70 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo/Bassem Daham) (Bassem Daham - AP)

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- More than 100 former members of Saddam Hussein's regime will stand trial this year in connection with the deaths of tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims during an uprising after the 1991 Gulf War, prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi said Thursday.

It will be the third trial of former regime officials after the Dujail case, in which Saddam was sentenced to death and hanged last month, and the ongoing trial of those accused of killing of more than 100,000 Kurds during the so-called Anfal campaign of the 1980s.

Al-Moussawi told The Associated Press that 102 officials have been charged by the prosecution in the third case, including Saddam and former Prime Minister Mohammed Hamza al-Zubaidi, who died of heart failure in 2005 while in U.S. custody. The charges against Saddam and al-Zubaidi were expected to be dropped when the trial begins.

Among those expected to stand trial are Saddam's half brothers Watban, Ibrahim and Sabawi, as well the former president's secretary, Abed Hmoud, and former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, al-Moussawi said.

Some will be tried in absentia, including Saddam's former deputy Izzat Ibrahim and former senior Baath party official Mohammed Younis al-Ahmed. They have been on the run since the fall of Saddam's regime in April 2003.

Former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan and Saddam's cousin and former Defense Minister Ali Hassan al-Majid are also included in this case, he said.

Ramadan was sentenced to life in prison in the Dujail case, although the court of appeals has called for a new sentence of death. Al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali" for using chemical weapons against the Kurds, is being tried in the Anfal case.

In addition to top officials, Al-Moussawi said, the defendants in the new trial include police and army officers with the rank of captain and above.

After Saddam's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north launched uprisings and seized control of 14 of the country's 18 provinces. U.S. troops created a safe haven for the Kurds in three northern provinces, preventing Saddam from attacking.

But the late dictator's troops marched into the predominantly Shiite south and crushed the uprising, killing tens of thousands of people.

Al-Moussawi said the uprising case was divided to 14 separate files, one for each province where the killings occurred. He added that officials would be tried for actions in the areas where they held responsibility.

"The first session of this case will be held later this year," said al-Moussawi, adding no date has been set. The Iraqi High Tribunal _ the same court that has presided over the Dujail and Anfal cases _ will also hear the uprising case, he said.

The Dujail case focused on the government's killing in 1982 of 148 Shiites in a town north of Baghdad, following an assassination attempt there against Saddam.

The three men sentenced to death in that case have all been executed: Saddam, his half brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim; and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court.

Three other defendants were sentenced to 15 years in jail while one was acquitted.

Officials in Saddam's regime still face trials for their alleged role in other crimes. These crimes include the slaying of members of political and religious parties, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the forced emigration of thousands of Shiite Kurds from northern Iraq into Iran, the execution of 8,000 members of the Kurdish Barzani tribe, and the destruction of the marshes in southern Iraq.