Saddam trial adjourned after false start
Ousted dictator spars with judge Ramsey Clark joins defence team
AMMAN, JORDAN—
Deflated by another false start to the trial of Saddam Hussein, several Iraqi officials yesterday lashed out at the glacial pace of justice, urging the tribunal to turn aside procedural bickering and push for a speedy conviction. With dozens of witnesses standing by to testify, Saddam and his seven co-defendants were expected to face an historic week of scrutiny over their alleged roles in the 1982 killings of more than 140 Shiite Muslims after a failed assassination attempt against the former president in the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad.
Instead, Chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin adjourned the trial until Monday, bowing to the defendants’ demands for more time to rebuild their legal teams after two of their original 13 lawyers were murdered and a third lawyer fled the country.
“ Iraqis are beginning to feel frustrated,” Ridha Jawad Taki, a member of Iraq’s largest Shiite Muslim party, said later.
“ The court should be more active. Saddam was captured two years ago and we feel that the sentence he will get will be reduced . . . the weakness of this court might affect the verdicts and this is worrying us.” Basam Ridha, an aide to Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al- Jaafari, told CNN “ Iraqis want a shorter turnaround to be executed sooner rather than later.
“ Most Iraqis — 95 per cent — do not like Saddam Hussein. They want to see him in a prison and executed, just like he did to the Iraqi people.” The aborted court session presented a defiant Saddam with another opportunity to vent against his foreign captors, the third such episode in 17 months. After complaining that he was denied access to his trial notes and was forced to climb four flights of stairs in shackles, Saddam erupted after the judge promised to tell police not to let it happen again.
“ You are the chief judge. I don’t want you to tell them. I want you to order them,” snapped Saddam. “ They are in our country. You have the sovereignty. You are Iraqi and they are foreigners and occupiers. They are invaders. You should order them.” A tape- delayed television broadcast of the trial cut away from Saddam, 68, during the outburst, leaving viewers throughout the Arab world with a full- screen image showing the official seal of the Iraqi High Tribunal. The day was further complicated by the entry of former U. S. attorney- general Ramsey Clark, whose addition to Saddam’s defence team struck a nerve among many of Iraq’s predominantly Shiite parliamentarians.
Clark, who served under U. S. president Lyndon Johnson, courted controversy in later years with a series of staunch anti- war activities, including a visit to Saddam in the tensionfilled days prior to the 2003 U. S. invasion that overthrew his regime.
“( Clark) does not have friends in Iraq,” said Ridha, who took offence at the last- minute internationalization of the trial process. “ He’s trying to be an international hero. But he will fall down doing so.”
Clark defended his involvement in a BBC interview, saying: “ If there is not a fair trial, this is just war by other means.
“ You will find few trials in history where fairness is so important. Above all, peace is at risk. If there’s not a fair trial, it’s going to create new violence, new hatred, a new war.”
Najeeb el- Nauimi, an assistant to Clark, told reporters in Baghdad he is worried the tribunal did not receive a series of written complaints from the defendants that were sent in recent weeks.
“ There is a division between what the judges know and what the clients submit to them,” said Nauimi. “ The judges think they are aware of everything surrounding them, which is not true.” The legal defence team earlier had threatened to boycott yesterday’s proceedings, citing safety fears. One of Saddam’s lawyers was kidnapped and killed by unknown assailants on Oct. 20, a day after the trial opened. Another was shot dead Nov. 8. A third fled the country after he was wounded. The lawyers abandoned their threat to boycott yesterday’s session after they received assurances they would be given protective lodging inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone for the trial’s duration. But safety concerns remain high in the wake of revelations that Iraqi police uncovered an Al Qaeda plot to assassinate the court’s senior investigating judge.
In other trial- related violence yesterday, a series of mortar rounds landed harmlessly inside the Green Zone as the court proceedings were to begin. And two workers affiliated with state- run Al- Iraqiya Television were reportedly shot dead as they filmed reaction to the trial in the streets outside the compound’s perimeter blast walls.