BAGHDAD, 12 July 2005 — Desperate to try Saddam Hussein more than 18 months after his capture, Iraq’s Parliament will debate a bill this month to reorganize the US-created court tasked with trying the ousted leader.
Deputy Speaker Hussein Shahristani told deputies yesterday that the first reading of the draft legislation will take place on July 20.
“The proposed legislation will be really comprehensive,” Mariam Al-Rayes, a deputy sitting on Parliament’s judicial committee, told AFP.
“We want to speed up the date of Saddam’s trial, we hope it can be held before the referendum on the new constitution in October.”
Rayes said the new legislation deals with potential loopholes in the tribunal’s bylaws or elements that may contradict Iraqi law, but gave no further details.
Many Kurdish and Shiite MPs who dominate the national assembly have charged that the Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST) is controlled by the Americans, saying this has slowed the process of bringing Saddam to trial.
The MPs from communities long-oppressed under Saddam’s regime also want all judges sitting on the tribunal vetted for links to Saddam’s former ruling Baath party.
According to Rayes, the bill is aimed at silencing those questioning the authority of the court which was first set up by former US administrator Paul Bremer before the handover of sovereignty to Iraqis in June 2004.
“The tribunal needs to derive its legitimacy from the ultimate legislative authority, which is Parliament,” she said.
The tribunal’s statute signed by Bremer in October 2003 gives the current Iraqi government “powers to establish other rules and procedures.”
Rayes said the credentials of the tribunal’s judges, prosecutors and administrative staff need to be reexamined for any affiliation to Saddam’s banned Baath party.
A former judge knowledgeable about the court and its workings told AFP on condition of anonymity that the tribunal’s 30 investigating judges were largely inexperienced and that some were former Baathists including Raed Juhi, the lead judge questioning Saddam.
Several attempts to reach Juhi for comment were unsuccessful. The tribunal’s statute precludes Baathists from being involved in the trials.
Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shiite who fought Saddam’s regime for years, has blamed the judges for the delay in starting the trial.
The tribunal hit back recently saying it was solely responsible for setting a date for Saddam’s trial and released several videotapes showing the former dictator and more than a dozen of his deputies being questioned as proof that progress was being made in building up cases against them.
“It has been pure theater so far. At the moment, it’s all in the hands of America,” complained senior Kurdish MP Mahmud Othman.
“We look at them as criminals who committed crimes against the Iraqi people, while America looks at them as a source of intelligence.”
Saddam, who has been in US custody since December 2003, is being held with dozens of his deputies at a US-run detention facility near Baghdad airport and is expected to be tried for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The US Justice Department’s Regime Crimes Liaison Office attached to the US Embassy assists the tribunal.
Saddam’s lawyers have long questioned the court’s impartiality and his detention this long without trial.
A source close to the tribunal said it was “capable of conducting fair trials” and that Saddam’s detention period was comparable to that for other “complicated trials in the West.”
The source said Saddam’s trial date will be decided by a five-person tribunal panel and that there may be “many trials”.
Saddam is expected to go on trial first for allegedly ordering the massacre of 143 Shiite residents of Dujail in 1982 after an attempt on his life in the village north of Baghdad.
