Saddam trial live on TV

2004-06-30 09:26

London - The trial of Saddam Hussein will be fair, broadcast live on television and radio and be the "trial of the century", Iraq's new national security adviser said on Wednesday.

Mouwafak al-Rubaie said the Iraqi Special Tribunal would be able to impose the death penalty. He said Saddam would not be allowed to turn the trial into a political game, by calling witnesses such as US President George W Bush or British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"Saddam Hussein will be under the legal control of Iraqi law," he told British Broadcasting Corp radio. "He is going to be tried according to the Iraqi criminal code."

Asked what the Iraqi court would do if Saddam tried to call Blair as a witness, as Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic had attempted to do at a UN court in The Hague, Netherlands, al-Rubaie answered: "We are not going to allow this to be a political showdown or a political game. We are going to restrict ourselves to the crimes."

"He is going to try to make it a Milosevic-style political showdown but we will not allow that to happen," he added.

"As an Iraqi interim government we promise our people and the Arab world and the outside world that Saddam will stand a fair trial," he said. "This is going to be the trial of the century."

The former dictator is to make his first court appearance on Thursday.

Chemical Ali

Al-Rubaie said the handover would be televised. He said an Iraqi judge would read Saddam the accusations against him, "issue an arrest warrant and he will be handcuffed again and taken away under Iraqi legal custody".

Al-Rubaie noted that the Coalition Provisional Authority had suspended the use of the death penalty. "Now we are back, an independent sovereign country, I think we will need to re-impose that penalty again," he told the BBC. "The death penalty is going to be available to the court."

The crimes against humanity for which Saddam is expected to be tried include the 1988 chemical weapons massacre of Kurds in Halabja, the slaughter of Shiites during a 1991 uprising in southern Iraq, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali", former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan and former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz are among 11 of Saddam's lieutenants to face the tribunal on Thursday.

Al-Rubaie said other high value detainees, depicted in the US military's "deck of cards" would be "handled in batches", once arrest warrants and charges were prepared.

- AP