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Saddam to go on trial for Kurd genocide on
21 Aug.-
27.6.2006
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BAGHDAD, June 27, 2006 (AFP) , -- The trial of
former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on charges
including genocide for a brutal campaign against
Kurds in the 1980s that left 100,000 people dead was
set Tuesday for August 21.
"After the transfer of the investigation results of
the Al-Anfal crimes to the criminal court... the
tribunal decided on Monday August 21, 2006 as a
trial date," the Iraqi High Tribunal said in a
statement.
The court had announced in April that Saddam and six
co-defendants including Ali Hassan al-Majid, also
known as Chemical Ali, would face genocide charges
over the Anfal campaign against Iraq's Kurds.
Saddam and seven co-defendants are currently on
trial for allegedly executing 148 inhabitants of the
Shiite village of Dujail following an assassination
attempt there against Saddam in 1982.
They face execution by hanging if convicted in the
Dujail case, which is set to resume on July 10. A US
official has said a verdict could be issued by
mid-September.
But Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd,
has said that Saddam would be tried for all his
crimes before any of the verdicts are implemented.
Aside from Saddam, other defendants in the August
trial include the so-called Chemical Ali, notorious
for ordering the gassing of Halabja in 1988 which
killed 5,000 people.
However, because the Halabja attack was not part of
the eight official Anfal campaigns, it will not be
included in the trial.
Central to the August trial will be Majid and
accusations he made liberal use of poisonous gas,
mass executions and prison camps to subdue the north
from 1987 to 1989, when there were major attacks on
the Kurds. |
Chief Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman
Former dictator Saddam Hussein
Photo : AFP |
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Though estimates vary, it is believed at least
100,000 Kurds died during this period with over
3,000 villages destroyed.
The term "Anfal" comes from the Koran and means
spoils of war. The campaign involved a systematic
bombardment, gassing and then assault of various
parts of the Kurdish autonomous region in 1988.
Prosecutors have described the Anfal campaign as an
act of genocide against the Kurdish people, while
the former Iraqi regime defended its actions as no
more than a necessary counter-insurgency operation
during wartime.
Majid, charged in 1987 by his cousin Saddam with
bringing larges swathes of the northern Kurdish
region back under control, began by declaring
"prohibited" zones, much like the Vietnam war-era
"free fire" zones, where all inhabitants were
considered insurgents.
Villagers were moved to defined, easily controlled
settlements, while the prohibited areas were first
bombarded and then invaded in classic counter
insurgency tactics.
According to New York-based Human Rights Watch, what
made these campaigns different than just a
counter-insurgency was a clear plan to exterminate
the Kurds as a people.
"Tellingly, the killings were not in any sense
concurrent with the counter-insurgency: the
detainees were murdered several days or even weeks
after the armed forces had secured their goals,"
said the organization in an extensive report on the
campaign.
"Finally, there is the question of intent, which
goes to the heart of the notion of genocide," said
the report, going on to detail the documents and
testimony that make this intent clear.
Others set to be in the dock include former minister
of defense Sultan Hashem Ahmed and high ranking
Baathists Saber Abdel Aziz, Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti,
Taher Mohammed al-Ani and Farhan al-Juburi.
A US official close to the court said in April that
"the evidence that the court is going to look at
involves voluminous amounts of documents,
testimonies from a large number of victims and
eyewitnesses and forensic evidence from mass graves
that have been excavated."
AFP
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