Nearly two years after his capture, Saddam Hussein was brought to trial on Oct. 19 for alleged war crimes against fellow Iraqis. Saddam has been charged with premeditated murder, imprisonment, deprivation of physical movement, forced deportation, and the torture of the people of a Shiite village in Dujail.
“Saddam Hussein is facing Iraqi justice,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan, according to The Washington Post. “The trial is a symbol that the rule of law is returning to Iraq. We hope this trial will help bring some closure for the Iraqi people to their country’s dark past.”
Throughout the Arab world there have been many different reactions to the Hussein trial.
“How can Saddam get a fair trial when there is no government in Iraq? How can they try him?” said Ismail Makki, a Shiite Muslim, according to USA Today.
Kuwaiti Omar Al-Murad said to CNN, “We have been waiting for this trial for a long time – not only us, but the Iraqi people and Iranian people as well. We say this is the end of every oppressor.”
A five-judge panel will hear the case and render a verdict. Chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin is a Kurd who has worked under Saddam’s regime and under his own people’s self-rule.
The court will be operating under rules that were brought into effect during U.S. occupation in 2003. They will also use a Saddam-era law created in 1971 that some consider below international standards because it enables the judges to issue a guilty verdict if they are “satisfied” by the evidence. Today, the court is overseen by a democratically-elected Iraqi government.
If convicted of the crime, Saddam and the seven senior members of his regime will be sentenced to death by hanging.
Palestinian Saed Souror said to The Washington Post, “I am not a Saddam supporter, but I am against this trial because it came on American orders … If Saddam was a murderer, what can we call the American acts in Iraq? For justice, President Bush and Saddam should sit together in the same place.”
The opening day of the trial included innocent pleads made by Saddam and the seven other members of his regime who are on trial.
Prosecutors have said they decided to bring the Dujail case against Saddam first because they have more solid evidence, including documents and videos.
Kahil al-Dulaimi, Baghdad lawyer and member of the Iraqi Bar Association, suggested that their defense strategy will focus not on Saddam’s innocence regarding the 150 murders, but instead on the legitimacy of the court set up under U.S. occupation.
“We will dispute the legitimacy of the court as we’ve been doing every day. We will claim it is unconstitutional and not competent to try the legitimate president of Iraq,” said al-Dulaimi to The Chicago Sun-Times.
According to The Washington Post, Saddam addressed Amin in court: “I do not respond to this so-called court, with all due respect to its people, and I retain my constitutional right as the president of Iraq. Neither do I recognize the body that has designated and authorized you, nor the aggression, because all that has been built on false basis is false.”
The proceedings lasted three hours, at the end of which Amin decided to adjourn the proceedings until Nov. 28 to give the defense more time to prepare for the trial and arrange for Arab and Western lawyers to join them.