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President Talabani urges moving troubled
Saddam court to Kurdistan
18.1.2006
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BAGHDAD: Iraq's
president today stepped into the debate over the
future of the troubled court trying Saddam Hussein,
suggesting it be moved from Baghdad to his own
Kurdish home region (Kurdistan) to improve security.
Jalal Talabani's proposal came as a split emerged
inside the court over how to choose a successor to
Kurdish judge Rizgar Amin; he resigned in protest at
political pressure, buffeting a trial already rocked
by the killings of two defence lawyers.
''If there are judges here who will feel in danger
in future, we are ready to take them to Kurdistan
and they would be safe there and guarded very
well,'' Talabani told Reuters in Baghdad.
Moving the U.S.-sponsored tribunal from the violent
but politically neutral setting of Baghdad to the
relative safety of Kurdistan seems unlikely; Kurds,
who see themselves as victims of Saddam, are deeply
hostile to the former leader and that could damage
efforts to demonstrate the court's fairness. |
Iraqi
President : Jalal Talabani
Photo: Reuters
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Some rights groups have urged the government to hold
a trial abroad in an international court. They
question Iraq's ability to stage a fair trial amid
sectarian and ethnic conflict.
Disputes over finding a permanent successor if chief
judge Amin continues to resist efforts to get him to
withdraw his resignation could further dent the
image of the court.
The administration of the Iraqi High Tribunal,
effectively the five-member appeals chamber meeting
as the executive arm of the court, wants Sayeed al-Hamashi,
the senior of Amin's four colleagues on the trial
panel judging Saddam, to be appointed as his
permanent replacement, a tribunal source told
Reuters.
RULES DISPUTE Hamashi had already been chosen
yesterday temporarily to preside over the trial when
it resumes on January 24 -- in line with rules
designed to cope with brief illnesses or other
absences. Talks are still going on to persuade Amin,
who lives in Talabani's power base of Sulaimaniya,
to return to Baghdad.
But the source said: ''The administration is now
insisting on appointing Hamashi permanently.'' Some
judges, however, were complaining the administration
had no right to appoint Hamashi and that the
statutes governing the tribunal make clear a new
chief judge must be elected by all the other judges,
not appointed.
Fourteen of the 15 judges who make up the tribunal's
three trial chambers held talks for several hours at
their offices on Tuesday, the source said. Amin did
not attend the talks.
''There is a serious controversy going on in the
tribunal. They are discussing the legality of
appointing Hamashi permanently,'' the source said.
''Some are unhappy because this step is
contradictory to the law of the tribunal, which
spells out that an alternate judge should be
elected, not appointed.'' He could not say how many
of the 14 judges were raising objections but said
they would meet again tomorrow, when a statement
could be issued.
Hamashi is the only other judge to have been seen
alongside Amin in television coverage of the trial.
He said he would not be intimidated by Saddam,
telling Asharq al-Awsat newspaper yesterday: ''I do
not care that the person in front of me is a former
president or Saddam Hussein.'' A source close to
Amin told Reuters after his resignation: ''He had
complaints from the government that he was being too
soft in dealing with Saddam. They want things to go
faster.'' Saddam and seven others are charged with
crimes against humanity for the killings of more
than 140 Shi'ite men after an assassination bid in
the town of Dujail in 1982. Other trials, including
for genocide against the Kurds, are likely to
follow.
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