Iraq war crimes trials to begin next week
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-14 21:07

BAGHDAD, Iraq - War crimes trials against Iraq's former Baath Party leaders will begin next week, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Tuesday. He didn't say whether Saddam Hussein would be among them.

Many members of Iraq's former regime have been in jail for more than a year, and few have been able to meet with counsel. Saddam's Jordan-based lawyers say they have not seen the former dictator, arrested a year ago Monday.

Officials had given conflicting accounts about when the trials before the Iraqi Special Tribunal would begin. They have also said that Saddam might not be the first to be tried.

"I can now tell you clearly and precisely that, God willing, next week the trials of the symbols of the former regime will start, one by one so that justice can take its path in Iraq," Allawi told Iraq's interim National Council, without saying who would be tried.

The government has given conflicting predictions about when trials would occur. Allawi had previously said they would take place in October or November, while others have said the trials would begin no earlier than 2006.

But leaders have come under new pressure recently. On Monday, the U.S. military acknowledged that eight of Saddam's 11 top lieutenants went on hunger strikes over the weekend to demand visits in jail from the International Committee of the Red Cross, but they were eating again by Monday.

A lawyer for former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said they were protesting the legality of their trials and their detention. Saddam's own lawyers in Jordan had issued a statement Sunday protesting the U.S. refusal to let them see him.

Younadem Kana, a member of the interim National Council, had said Monday the body wants a speedy trial for Saddam and his lieutenants because the detainees are giving hope to insurgents in Iraq.

"Punishing them would be a deterrent," he said.

Saddam and his 11 top lieutenants have been held for months in an undisclosed location, believed to be near the Baghdad International Airport, west of the capital. They appeared before the Iraqi Special Tribunal in July to face preliminary charges from the former regime.

Saddam was presented with seven charges that included gassing thousands of Kurds in 1988, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the suppression of 1991 revolts by Kurds and Shiites, the murders of religious and political leaders and the mass displacement of Kurds in the 1980s.

Some Allawi critics have claimed he is politicizing the trials ahead of Jan. 30 elections. Salem Chalabi, the tribunal director, was ousted abruptly in September and accused him of pushing for show trials to boost his popularity before the vote.

Government leaders have recently said the Special Tribunal is not yet prepared to begin the trials. They need to train judges and prosecutors, and sort through stacks of evidence, all under the pressure of a deadly insurgency that has been able to strike at will.

"The prosecution team, the defense counsel, the investigative judges, the documents are not ready," National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie told The Associated Press last week. "It will take time. If you want to get it right, it will take time."

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