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Prosecutor won't forget her time in Iraq
19.6.2005
Published on 18.June
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CHARLOTTE, N.C. – A Charlotte prosecutor
returned home in March after eight months helping
Iraqis collect evidence against Saddam Hussein and
his regime.
When Anne Thompkins heard last year that the
Department of Justice was putting a team together to
go to Iraq, she began a campaign of phone calls and
e-mails to let them know she was interested. After
an interview in Washington, D.C., the assistant U.S.
attorney got selected.
The Department of Justice told her that her safety
was not guaranteed and each person needed to carry a
handgun.
"The very first time that we were subject to a
mortar attack, I was shocked because I thought ‘Oh
my gosh, they are really trying to kills us,’ and
you never really get used to that,” she said. "We
didn't know at that time whether things in Iraq were
going to get better or whether they were going to
get worse, and as it turns out, the security
situation got worse and worse, really until now."
In August 2004, she along with six other attorneys
and members of the FBI, Drug Enforcement
Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms went to Baghdad to assist judges with the
Iraqi special tribunal. The judges put cases
together against Saddam Hussein, Chemical Ali and
others.
“There's a lot of documentation of the regime
ordering the destruction of villages and the
resettling of the Kurdish people,” Thompkins
explained.
She says the team exhumed a mass grave of women and
children which led them to a village in Kurdistan.
“You look at a jumble of clothing and that's what it
looks like, it just looks like clothing, and then it
sinks in that those are people and those are
children,” she said.
Under Saddam's regime, Thompkins says there was a
criminal justice system in Iraq, but it was very
different.
“One of the bad parts about Saddam Hussein’s regime
is that they had secret courts and it wasn't a true
trial,” she said. “Things would happen overnight and
people would be tried and executed all in an
eight-hour period.
Thompkins was there for Hussein's first court
appearance.
"He is a very intimidating person, and you can tell
he hasn't lost that aura of control,” she said.
“He's in fact not in control, but I think that's a
hard lesson that he is still learning, but it was
pretty intense to be in his presence."
Hussein was asked about council during that court
appearance, and he chose to hire his own. When
Hussein's trial gets under way, the world will be
watching, but she says Iraqis want to give him due
process.
Thompkins says she would love to go back when the
trial gets under way, but that is not the only
reason. She says she has an affinity for the Iraqi
people.
Although the work was grueling, she knows it was
important – a chance to witness history and to reach
out to the Iraqi people. She says they are truly
grateful to the Americans.
www.news14charlotte.com
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