BAGHDAD: The top UN envoy in Iraq has urged the Shiite-led government to treat imprisoned Saddam Hussein-era figures fairly after the American military hands them over as part of a detainee transfer required under a new security pact.
The stakes are high for Saddam’s cousin known as “Chemical Ali,” who already faces two death sentences handed down by an Iraqi court, and other former officials who were captured by US troops years ago and accused of playing a role in decades of abuse and killings of Shiites and Kurds.
Staffan de Mistura, the UN’s special representative in Iraq, called for the high-profile figures and other detainees to be given due process — “if possible with some international observation.”
He also reiterated the UN’s opposition to capital punishment. “The wish of the UN is that the death penalty is not applied,” he told The Associated Press on Saturday in a telephone interview.
The fate of Ali Hassan Al-Majid, nicknamed “Chemical Ali” for ordering poison gas attacks against the Kurds, former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Al-Taie and an ex-deputy director of operations for the Iraqi armed forces, Hussein Rashid Mohammed, has been in limbo since an appeals court upheld their death sentences in September.
The three men were sentenced to hang for a 1980s crackdown against Kurds. But the US military refused to relinquish control of the detainees after Sunni leaders launched a campaign to spare the life of Al-Taie, who is widely viewed as a respected career soldier who was forced to follow Saddam’s orders in the purges.
The security pact, which takes effect on Jan. 1, stipulates that the US military must transfer the more than 15,000 detainees in its custody to the Iraqis or release them if the evidence is not sufficient to hold them.
Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, the No. 2 US commander in Iraq, indicated earlier this month that those would include the former regime officials.
“All of the detainees that we have in our control, we’ll work with the government of Iraq to return those detainees in a safe and orderly fashion. That includes all of them,” he said when asked about the status of the condemned men at a news conference.
