Saddam evidence not secured
2004-11-04 09:06
Cairo - United States-led forces in Iraq failed to safeguard official documents belonging to Saddam Hussein's deposed regime and mass graves holding the remains of thousands of victims, a human rights watchdog said on Thursday, saying such "negligence" may affect the trials for the former Iraqi dictator and his colleagues.
Human Rights Watch says in its 41-page report, titled "Iraq: The
State of the Evidence," that coalition forces failed to stop people stealing thousands of official documents in the months after the March 2003 invasion.
They also failed to stop people from damaging some of the more than 250 mass graves in their search for the remains of relatives.
"Coalition forces subsequently failed to put in place the professional expertise and assistance necessary to ensure proper classification and exhumation procedures," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch.
"As a result, it is very likely that key evidentiary materials
have been lost or tainted," she said.
Saddam has been accused of ordering the killing of tens of
thousands of Shiites and Kurds who rose up against him in 1991
following the Gulf War that liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation.
He was charged on July 1 in Baghdad on broad charges including
killing rival politicians over 30 years, gassing Kurds in the
northern town of Halabja in 1988, invading Kuwait in 1990 and
suppressing the Kurdish and Shiite uprisings.
Patience
Eleven leading officials from his regime also face trial. Among
them is Ali Hasan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for his role in chemical weapons attacks against the Kurds.
Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, wants an early start
to the trials, but US officials say patience is necessary to
ensure the proceedings meet the highest international standards.
Hania Mufti, Human Rights Watch's representative in Iraq, said
the failure to protect the mass graves and state archives may have led to the "loss of some valuable evidence, which has the potential of impacting on some aspects of the trial."
Mufti said mass gravesites should have been secured to prevent
relatives from damaging them, and forensic teams should have
arrived much earlier to conduct at least initial assessments.
"Before the war, we had officials in the United States talking
about the need to bring officials from the former Iraqi regime
accused of perpetrating serious crimes to justice," Mufti said.
"The next logical step would have been to secure the evidence, and this wasn't done."
- SAPA