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CHARLOTTE, N.C. - A federal prosecutor who once
won death sentences against a serial killer returns
to Iraq this week to build the case of the people
vs. Saddam.
Anne Tompkins, 42, packs a 9mm pistol whenever she
leaves the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. In bed she hears
mortar rounds exploding and hopes no one has been
injured or killed.
In five months in Iraq on special assignment to help
prosecute Saddam Hussein and his leaders for crimes
against their people, the Charlotte prosecutor has
seen the mass graves in the Iraqi desert littered
with bones, flesh and clothing. She's talked to
Iraqis victimized by Saddam's regime.
"Many of the crimes we are investigating took place
a long time ago. The Iraqi people haven't forgotten
them, and it is time for the world to know about
them," she said.
The prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney's Office in
Charlotte is among a team of American lawyers
advising the Iraqi tribunal that will prosecute
Saddam and his former officials. She talked about
her work in Iraq during an interview while home in
Charlotte for the holidays. She planned to return to
Iraq on Monday.
Human Rights Watch estimates that 250,000 people
disappeared or were detained or murdered during
Saddam's reign. Thousands of them could be in mass
graves discovered throughout the country.
"It's the biggest thing I've ever done," Tompkins
said. "This is a case involving international
humanitarian law and the prosecution of the former
leaders of Iraq. How much bigger can it get?"
Tompkins has handled some of Charlotte's most
high-profile cases during her long career as a state
and federal prosecutor.
In 1997, Tompkins and Mecklenburg Assistant District
Attorney Marsha Goodenow won death sentences against
serial killer Henry Louis Wallace for the murders of
nine Charlotte women. As a federal prosecutor since
2000, Tompkins has handled some of the district's
most complex cases, from illegal tax shelters to a
capital murder case.
Tompkins works 16 hours a day, seven days a week.
She has almost daily contact with an Iraqi judge who
will decide what charges Saddam and the regime's
other leaders will face. She won't say whether she's
seen Saddam.
Among the issues she said she and her American
colleagues are helping investigate: chemical attacks
on the civilian Kurdish population in northern Iraq,
political oppression and torture, the brutal
repression of the 1991 uprising after the Gulf War,
and war crimes in the invasion of Kuwait.
Tompkins spends much of her time poring over Iraqi
government documents, looking for possible evidence
of atrocities. She's traveled to Kurdistan, a region
in Iraq's north, three times by U.S. Army Black Hawk
helicopter to investigate the Iraqi military's use
of chemical weapons against civilians.
"I'm working on behalf of the victims of the
regimes," she said.
Working in Iraq is dangerous, she says, but
everybody accepts the risks.
A helicopter she was traveling aboard was once fired
upon. She's had to hit the ground and scramble for
safety when mortar rounds began exploding nearby.
"There's nothing you can do but lie there and wait
for it to be done. And my mind wanders, wondering if
anyone's been killed. I hope not," she said. "That's
scary. But then the sun comes up. And we go about
our job."
The violence erupting in Iraq and the language
barriers make the job all that more difficult.
"We are working as hard as we can to assist the
Iraqis in putting together cases in an environment
in which it takes a logistical miracle to make even
the simplest thing happen," Tompkins said.
Information from: The Charlotte Observer,
http://www.charlotte.com
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