BAGHDAD, 19 December 2004 — Saddam Hussein’s feared cousin Ali Hassan Al-Majid, better known as “Chemical Ali”, was the first to face a formal interview with the chief investigating magistrate yesterday as war crimes trials against the former Iraqi president and his closest lieutenants moved forward.
Iraq’s US-backed government had promised trials would begin before next month’s elections, the first free vote since Saddam rose to power three decades ago. But the judge stressed his meetings with Majid and the former Defense Minister Sultan Hashem were just the start of a long process.
“Hurrying will not help this case,” Raed Jouhi said. Official and silent film of the two hearings showed both men looking relaxed, chatting and smiling under guard. Majid leaned on a walking stick, possibly still suffering from wounds sustained while on the run from invading US forces last year.
Some Iraqi officials have dismissed the publicity as little more than an election campaign ploy by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. However that may be, the 67-year-old ousted dictator and his aides have now been given access to lawyers.
After brief appearances in July to hear possible charges of crimes against humanity and genocide against Kurds gassed by troops under Majid’s control, the formal process of deciding who is tried for what is under way, a year after Saddam was caught.
Jouhi told reporters there was no set timetable for the trials, each of which will be prepared by different judges.
Majid and Hashem appeared in turn, both being released from handcuffs and seated on a folding chair in a bare room before Jouhi’s desk, on which lay a Qur’an wrapped in green cloth.
Jouhi, who presided over the brief hearings for Saddam and the others in July, said both men yesterday had legal counsel.
One of the defense lawyers declined to speak to reporters for fear of reprisals. Many Iraqis want summary justice for their former leaders, who they say have the blood of tens of thousands on their hands; the former US occupying authority abolished the death penalty and Iraq has yet to bring it back.
The Jan. 30 election will furnish a National Assembly that will draw up a new constitution and, Washington hopes, give Iraq a legitimate government to replace the de facto US rule that filled the vacuum left by the overthrow of the Baath Party.
US officials concede an insurgency among Saddam’s Sunni minority poses the major threat to the chances of forming a representative legislature. Three election offices in Sunni northern Iraq came under attack in the latest incidents.
Two people were killed and eight were wounded, including six National Guards, when mortars landed on an election office in Dujail, 50 km (30 miles) north of Baghdad. It is one of many around the country registering and educating voters.
A mortar also landed on an election office in the northern oil capital of Kirkuk, where ethnic tensions among Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen are high ahead of a poll many want delayed locally.
National Guards fought off gunmen who attacked an election office 60 km southwest of Kirkuk.
Saboteurs who are hampering efforts to restore Iraq’s oil wealth and contributing to a cold winter without heat and light for many, blew up a key oil export pipeline near Kirkuk, halting flows for the second time in a week. In the big northern city of Mosul seven children in a school bus were hit when a roadside bomb missed a US patrol. One child died.
— With input from agencies
