BAGHDAD, 15 December 2004 — The defense team of imprisoned former president Saddam Hussein yesterday denounced as “invalid” plans by Iraq’s interim government to start next week trying members of the country’s ousted regime.

“The interrogation (of detainees) in the absence of their lawyers is invalid and the accusations made against them are also invalid according to legal rules,” the spokesman for the Jordan-based team Ziad Khassawhen said.

“We have written to international organizations and the concerned parties over the past year-and-a-half but have been unsuccessful so far in meeting president Saddam Hussein or any of his companions,” he added.

Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said that the “symbols” of Saddam’s toppled regime would start going on trial as early as next week.

“The trial will begin next week of the symbols of the former regime who will appear in succession to ensure that justice is done in Iraq,” Allawi told the interim national assembly in Baghdad.

Allawi made it clear that he was referring to Saddam and the 11 top members of his former ruling Baathist regime who are being held in US custody awaiting trial on charges of crimes against humanity.

His announcement came a day after Washington said that Saddam’s trial should not be hurried - as Iraq marked the first anniversary of the capture of the former dictator by US troops.

The 67-year-old Saddam, who was captured Dec. 13, 2003, is to be tried by a special Iraqi tribunal and could face the death penalty.

His defense counsel, which includes Arab and Western lawyers, was appointed by Saddam’s wife, Sajida.

Saddam Being Held in Iraq’s Camp Cropper

The once-secret location where Saddam is being detained is Camp Cropper, a US base near Baghdad’s international airport, Iraq’s Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin said yesterday.

“Yes it is Camp Cropper,” Amin told reporters, referring to the heavily fortified compound that forms part of a vast US army complex called Camp Victory, about 16 kilometers from the center of the Iraqi capital.

Amin said the former dictator was eating well and had gained weight.

“He is in good health,” the minister told a news conference in Geneva, where he is attending a meeting with donor countries, UN agencies and other advocacy groups to discuss human rights activities in Iraq.

“He is eating very well and has gained five pounds,” said the minister, who paid Saddam a visit in September.

In contrast, eight of 11 other detainees, who along with Saddam are awaiting trial for crimes against humanity, temporarily refused food from Friday in what a lawyer said was a protest against the denial of their prisoner rights. But they had started eating again on Monday, the US army said.

For his part, Saddam had been given blood tests for a chronic prostate condition, which tested negative for cancer, but he has refused a biopsy to confirm the result beyond a doubt, Amin said.

US Army Chief in Baghdad With Celebrities in Tow

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers arrived from Kuwait yesterday at a military base near the capital’s international airport along with comedian Robin Williams.

The United States will reverse troop increases in Iraq only when events allow after the country’s Jan. 30 elections, Gen. Myers said yesterday.

The US military said two weeks ago that Iraq’s security forces it wouldn’t be able to adequately protect the vote and announced it was raising the number of troops from 138,000 to about 150,000 by mid-January — slightly more than during the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime.