Saddam to go on trial on October 19

BAGHDAD – Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and seven of his henchmen will go on trial on October 19 over the massacre of 143 people more than two decades ago, a government official announced yesterday.

“In view of recent leaks to the press and in the absence of an official spokesman for the tribunal, I have been authorised to announce that the trial of Saddam Hussein will begin on October 19,” government spokesman Laith Kubba told a news conference. Saddam and the seven others will be tried by the Iraqi Special Tribunal over the 1982 killing of 143 residents in the village of Dujail, northeast of Baghdad, where he had been the target of a failed assassination bid.Saddam is also expected to face separate trials at a later date on further counts of crimes against humanity, particularly with regard to the gassing of Kurds and the mass killings of Shi’ites in the south of the country.But Kubba suggested that, if found guilty and sentenced to death after the initial trial, the punishment could be carried out without waiting for any further trials.If the sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Council for Justice, the highest judicial authority in Iraq, and approved by the presidential council, it “will be implemented immediately”, he told AFP.The 68-year-old Saddam, who was ousted in April 2003 and captured by US forces in December of that year, is currently being detained by US forces outside Baghdad airport.Others who will stand trial with him include former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan, former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, a Saddam half-brother, and Awad Ahmad al-Bandar, a former deputy chief in Saddam’s cabinet.- Nampa-AFPSaddam and the seven others will be tried by the Iraqi Special Tribunal over the 1982 killing of 143 residents in the village of Dujail, northeast of Baghdad, where he had been the target of a failed assassination bid.Saddam is also expected to face separate trials at a later date on further counts of crimes against humanity, particularly with regard to the gassing of Kurds and the mass killings of Shi’ites in the south of the country.But Kubba suggested that, if found guilty and sentenced to death after the initial trial, the punishment could be carried out without waiting for any further trials.If the sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Council for Justice, the highest judicial authority in Iraq, and approved by the presidential council, it “will be implemented immediately”, he told AFP.The 68-year-old Saddam, who was ousted in April 2003 and captured by US forces in December of that year, is currently being detained by US forces outside Baghdad airport.Others who will stand trial with him include former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan, former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, a Saddam half-brother, and Awad Ahmad al-Bandar, a former deputy chief in Saddam’s cabinet.- Nampa-AFP