BAGHDAD, 19 December 2003 — Six judges from Iraq’s Karbala province have been fired for corruption and links to the former ruling Baath party, a senior US officer said yesterday.
“The judicial review committee in Baghdad dismissed the chief judge and five judges in Karbala province from their duties after an investigation determined them to be corrupt,” Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told a news conference.
He said the jurists also had ties to the Baath party which backed fallen dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime. The US-led coalition administering Iraq since Saddam’s overthrow in April says it has been trying to purge the country’s judiciary of bad elements. Karbala province is 110 kilometers south of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, a giant photo of Saddam getting a jail visit from his nemesis Ahmed Chalabi graced the front page of a Baghdad newspaper yesterday.
A pale and thinner Saddam, dressed in a gray sports jacket and white robes, is sitting on a bed in his crumbling cell, next to his adversary, the longtime Iraqi opposition leader Chalabi, who returned to Baghdad after Saddam was pushed from power last April. The photo was blown up across the front page of Al-Mutamar.
