TEHRAN, 22 December 2005 — Iran wants Saddam Hussein, whose Baghdad trial resumed yesterday, to be charged with ordering poison gas attacks that killed thousands of Iranian civilians during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, a top Iranian official said. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Saddam had used chemical weapons to kill Iranians during the war, especially in Iran’s northwestern Kurdish area, flattening entire villages and destroying farms.

“Iran is the main victim of chemical weapons. Saddam’s use of chemicals was against international laws,” Mottaki told reporters in a hospital where he was visiting “living martyrs”, wounded survivors of Saddam’s chemical weapons attacks.

Several dozen veterans wounded by chemical weapons are undergoing treatment in central Tehran’s Sassan Hospital, one of two hospitals in the capital specializing in such wounds. Mottaki said Iran had prepared a petition which the Foreign Ministry would pass on to the court in Baghdad.

“The court has yet to review Saddam’s crimes abroad. We want his crimes against Iranians to be investigated,” he said.

The petition included documents that proved Iraq’s use of nerve and mustard gas during the eight-year war, Mottaki said.

“During the war, Saddam used chemicals against Iran 20 times,” Mottaki said, adding that some 40,000 people had been affected.

Iran has repeatedly accused the West of supplying Saddam with the technology and some of the materials to develop chemical weapons. “Western countries and companies that supplied Saddam with chemicals share the responsibility for this crime,” Mottaki said. “Saddam acquired chemicals from more than 400 Western companies, including 25 American, 15 German and 10 British companies.”

Iran is deeply concerned about the influence of its archenemy, the United States, on the trial, he added.

“We are concerned about the way the court is trying these war criminals and America’s pressure on the court (to ignore Iran’s demand),” he said. “Iran is closely watching the trial.” Saddam and his seven co-defendants are charged with crimes against humanity, but all have pleaded not guilty. They could face death by hanging if convicted.

MPs Put Off Minister’s Impeachment

Iranian lawmakers yesterday put off a bill to impeach Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar over the crash of a decrepit military plane in Tehran which killed 108 people. The impeachment bill was temporarily taken out of the Parliament’s agenda on Najar’s request to give him one month to prepare his answers to the deputies’ questions, state television reported.

An impeachment motion from 49 MPs had been passed by Parliament on Dec. 13 to allow them put tough questions to the defense minister over the crash. Due to a ten working day constitutional deadline for carrying out the impeachment process after such motions are passed by Parliament, the session was scheduled to be held on Dec. 25.

On Dec. 6, the aged Lockheed C-130 transport plane — bought from the United States before the 1979 Islamic revolution and starved of crucial spares because of US sanctions — crashed into the foot of a high-rise housing block after suffering engine failure.

Out of the 108 fatalities, 68 were journalists, photographers and media technicians traveling on the aircraft to report on military exercises in the south of Iran.

Authorities have been accused of ordering the plane to take off despite warnings from the pilot over a period of several hours.