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Saddam seeks trial outside Iraq
3.7.2005
Hala Jaber and Ali Rifat Amman |
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LAWYERS acting for Saddam Hussein have begun
legal moves aimed at forcing the American-led
coalition to put him on trial outside Iraq. They
argue that any proceedings in the country he ruled
for 24 years would be prejudiced against him.
In an interview last week, Ziad al-Khasawneh, head
of a committee of lawyers set up to defend Saddam,
said a writ of habeas corpus had been lodged in
America.
The intention, he said, was to remove Saddam from
Iraq and prevent him from being forced to appear
before the Iraqi Special Tribunal, established by
the American-led administration last December to try
members of the former regime.
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Former dictator
Saddam Hussein
Photo : AP |
“This may remove Saddam from the game of handing him
to the Iraqis who are hostile to him,” said
Khasawneh.
A writ of habeas corpus (literally “you may have the
body”) requires an inmate to be brought before a
court so that it can be determined whether or not he
is lawfully detained. If granted in Saddam’s case,
it would ensure that he was taken out of Iraq “for
his protection”, Khasawneh said.
During the interview over two days at his office in
Amman, Khasawneh, who has practised law for 30
years, spoke of his admiration for Saddam. He has
worked on the case for a year and a half and said
that his appointment as head of the defence
committee had the blessing of the former president
and Raghad, his eldest daughter.
“This is not a pure defence for Saddam but it is a
defence of Iraq and in fact a defence of the entire
world,” Khasawneh said as his mobile phone rang
repeatedly.
“When a giant like the USA strikes against one
country, then it can at any time strike against any
other country. What happened in Iraq sets a
dangerous precedent — one which is also linked to
the issue of human rights in general.”
The committee is supported by 2,500 lawyers, Arabs
and non-Arabs alike. The overwhelming majority work
unpaid. Of these, 1,040 are Iraqis and 800 are
Jordanian.
There are also large contingents from Yemen, Sudan
and Libya, including Colonel Muammar Gadaffi’s
daughter Aisha. Others come from Egypt, Lebanon,
Syria, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Malaysia, Britain,
France and America.
Among the Americans are Curtis Doebbler, 43, an
academic and former legal adviser to the Palestinian
Authority who has represented some of the prisoners
at Guantanamo Bay, and William Ramsey Clark, 77,
attorney-general from 1967-9 under President Lyndon
B Johnson.
Clark, a veteran human rights campaigner, has
provided legal counsel and advice to several figures
in conflict with western governments, including
Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian leader.
“The special court in Iraq was created by the Iraqi
governing council, which is nothing more than a
creation of the US military occupation and has no
authority in law as a criminal court,” Clark
declared on joining the committee this year.
He has long maintained that Saddam was never as
brutal as claimed in the western media.
Saddam’s defence committee is being directed by
Raghad. Also backing the team are Roland Dumas, the
former French foreign minister, Ahmed Ben Bella, the
former Algerian president, and Mahathir Mohamad, the
former prime minister of Malaysia.
The prosecution’s case against Saddam is expected to
centre on a dozen or so documented incidents of
killings and human rights abuses perpetrated by his
regime. One of the most damning concerns a massacre
at Dujail, 40 miles north of Baghdad, in July 1982
when several hundred people were executed in cold
blood in reprisal for a botched assassination
attempt against Saddam.
Other charges are likely to relate to the brutal
suppression of Kurdish and Shi’ite uprisings, the
killings of rival politicians and the invasion of
Kuwait in 1990.
Saddam’s lawyers are preparing to turn the tables on
America and Britain by challenging the allied
invasion and occupation as illegal and unjustified
because no weapons of mass destruction have been
found and no link has been established between his
regime and international terrorism by groups such as
Al-Qaeda.
They argue that Saddam should not be facing trial in
the first place, since the country’s former
constitution should still apply. Article 40
stipulates that the president cannot be put on trial
without permission of the Revolutionary Council, the
highest body in Saddam’s former ruling Ba’ath party.
According to Khasawneh, article 58 of the same
document grants the president power to take whatever
measures he deems necessary to protect the nation’s
security.
This, he claims, provides immunity from charges over
the Dujail and other massacres. Khasawneh complained
that the tribunal had failed to communicate with the
defence team. He and his colleagues had not seen a
single document from the “so-called tons of
paperwork, evidence, statements and affidavits
collected by the prosecution”, he said, making it
highly unlikely that the trial could take place
within a few months as predicted.
“We have not received any official information about
the charges against Saddam,” he said. Khasawneh said
that Saddam had undergone a hernia operation last
October without the consent of his family members
and defence team, which he claimed was in breach of
the Geneva conventions.
“Since a prisoner is denied his freedom, that means
he is also denied his consent, and as such any
serious medical decisions involving surgery have to
be notified to his family and defence team,” he
argued.
Despite frequent requests from others, only one
lawyer, Khalil al-Duleimi, an Iraqi, has so far been
allowed to visit Saddam and in three meetings has
briefed him on the strategy of his defence team.
Khasawneh said Saddam told the Iraqi lawyer that he
had launched the resistance on the eve of the fall
of Baghdad after learning that some of his military
commanders had betrayed him. “He told the remaining
military to close a chapter and open a new one, that
of the resistance,” Khasawneh said.
“He strongly believes the resistance attacks will
intensify in the coming months.”
Samir Sumaidaie, the Iraqi ambassador to the United
Nations, has accused American marines of killing his
21-year-old cousin in western Iraq in cold blood and
has demanded an immediate investigation.
www.sundaytimes.co.uk
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