Trial of Saddam Hussein
The trial of Saddam Hussein was the trial of the deposed President of Iraq Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi Interim Government for crimes against humanity during his time in office.
Trial of Saddam Hussein
Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST)
19 October 2005 – 21 December 2006
Saddam Hussein found guilty of crimes against humanity and subsequently sentenced to death; executed on 30 December 2006
The Coalition Provisional Authority voted to create the Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST), consisting of five Iraqi judges, on 9 December 2003, to try Saddam and his aides for charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide[1] dating back to the early 1980s.
Saddam was captured by U.S. forces on 13 December 2003.[2] He remained in custody by U.S. forces at Camp Cropper in Baghdad, along with eleven senior Ba'athist officials. Particular attention was paid during the trial to activities in violent campaigns against the Kurds in the north during the Iran–Iraq War, against the Shiites in the south in 1991 and 1999 to put down revolts, and in Dujail after a failed assassination attempt against Saddam on 8 July 1982, during the Iran–Iraq War. Saddam asserted in his defense that he had been unlawfully overthrown, and was still the president of Iraq.
The first trial began before the Iraqi Special Tribunal on 19 October 2005. At this trial Saddam and seven other defendants were tried for crimes against humanity with regard to events that took place after a failed assassination attempt in Dujail in 1982 by members of the Islamic Dawa Party (see also human rights abuses in Iraq under Saddam Hussein). A second and separate trial began on 21 August 2006,[3] trying Saddam and six co-defendants for genocide during the Anfal military campaign against the Kurds in northern Iraq.
On 5 November 2006, Saddam was sentenced to death by hanging. On 26 December, Saddam's appeal was rejected and the death sentence upheld. No further appeals were taken and Saddam was ordered executed within 30 days of that date. The date and place of the execution were secret until the sentence was carried out.[4] Saddam was executed by hanging on 30 December 2006.[5] With his death, all other charges were dropped.
Critics viewed the trial as a show trial that did not meet international standards on the right to a fair trial. Amnesty International stated that the trial was "unfair,"[6] and Human Rights Watch judged that Saddam's execution "follows a flawed trial and marks a significant step away from the rule of law in Iraq."[7] Several months before the trial took place, Salem Chalabi, the former head of the Iraq Special Tribunal (which was established to try Hussein), accused interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi of pushing for a hasty show trial and execution, stating: "Show trials followed by speedy executions may help the interim government politically in the short term but will be counterproductive for the development of democracy and the rule of law in Iraq in the long term."[8]
First hearing: 1 July 2004[edit]
The 67-year-old former president, Saddam Hussein, appeared confident and defiant throughout the 46-minute hearing. Alternating between listening to and gesturing at the judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin, he questioned the legitimacy of the tribunal set up to try him. He called the court a "play" aimed at George W. Bush's chances of winning the U.S. presidential election.[9] He emphatically rejected charges against him. "This is all theater. The real criminal is Bush", he stated.[10] When asked by the judge to identify himself in his first appearance before an Iraqi judge (three of the five judges and the prosecutor were never identified nor photographed for security reasons), he answered, "You are an Iraqi, you know who I am."[11]
Also during the arraignment, Saddam defended Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait and referred to Kuwaitis as "dogs" who were trying to turn the women of Iraq into "two-penny whores", which led to an admonition from the judge for using coarse language in court. Later on 1 July, Kuwait's information minister Abul-Hassan said crude language was "expected" of Saddam. "This is how he was raised", said the minister.[12]
Although no attorneys for Saddam were present at the 1 July hearing, his first wife, Sajida Talfah, hired a multinational legal team of attorneys, headed by Jordanian Mohammad Rashdan and including Ayesha Gaddafi (Libya), Curtis Doebbler (United States), Emmanuel Ludot (France) and Marc Henzelin (Switzerland). Towards the end of the first hearing, the deposed president refused to sign the legal document confirming his understanding of the charges.
Pre-trial events[edit]
In a leaked transcript of a February 2003 meeting between George W. Bush and Spanish Prime Minister José Aznar, Bush expressed a willingness to have Saddam tried at the International Tribunal of Justice in The Hague.[13]
In December 2004, Clive Stafford Smith prepared a 50-page brief for the defense team arguing that Saddam Hussein should be tried in the U.S. under U.S. criminal law.[14]
The London-based Arab-language daily newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported in early May 2005 that during a meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "known only to a few Iraqi officials in Jordan", Saddam refused an offer of release if he made a televised request to armed groups for a ceasefire with allied forces.[15] The British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, quoting an unnamed senior UK government source, had reported two weeks before that Iraqi insurgents were being offered a "deal" whereby the President of Iraq would receive a more lenient sentence if they gave up their attacks.[16]
On 17 June 2005, former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of France Roland Dumas and former President of Algeria Ahmed Ben Bella announced the formation, under their joint chairmanship, of an international Emergency Committee for Iraq, with a main objective of ensuring fair trials for Saddam and the other former Ba'ath Party officials being tried with him.[17]
On 18 July 2005, Saddam was charged by the Special Tribunal with the first of an expected series of charges, relating to the mass killings of the inhabitants of the village of Dujail in 1982 after a failed assassination attempt against him.
On 8 August 2005, Saddam's family announced that they had dissolved the Jordan-based legal team and that they had appointed Khalil al-Duleimi, the only Iraq-based member, as the sole legal counsel.[18] In an interview broadcast on Iraqi television on 6 September 2005, Iraqi president Jalal Talabani said that he had directly extracted confessions from Saddam that he had ordered mass killings and other "crimes" during his regime and that "he deserved to die." Two days later, Saddam's lawyer denied that he confessed.[19]
Saddam's defense repeatedly argued for a delay in the proceedings, insisting that it had not been given evidence secured by the prosecution, had not been given sufficient time to review any prosecution documents, but these submissions received no response from the court. International human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and UN bodies such as the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that the Iraqi Special Tribunal and its legal process did not meet international standards for a fair trial. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan declined to support the proceeding, expressing similar concerns over fairness as well as over the possibility of a death sentence in the case.
Reactions[edit]
Reactions to the verdict[edit]
Iraq: President Jalal Talabani said in a statement, "I think this trial was fair", and "I must respect the independence of the Iraqi judiciary. Until the end I must be silent."[36] Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the sentence may "help alleviate the pain of the widows and the orphans, and those who have been ordered to bury their loved ones in secrecy, and those who have been forced to suppress their feelings and suffering, and those who have paid at the hands of torturers" under Saddam's regime.[36] First Deputy Speaker of the Iraqi National Assembly Khaled al-Attiyah said "we expected the maximum penalty against the criminal Saddam Hussein and his henchmen because they committed horrible crimes against the Iraqi people, the Arabs, Kurds, Muslims and the entire Western community."[36]
Australia: Prime Minister John Howard said, "They could've easily allowed him to be arbitrarily executed as has happened in so many other countries, yet no, he could've been shot ... or something like that, but no, they were determined to have a transparent trial; they were determined to demonstrate to the world that there was a new Iraq." Howard said he was opposed to the death penalty, but could not govern what another country did. Howard stated that the death penalty is not the issue of significance. "The real issue is that he was tried in an open, transparent fashion and one of the great marks of democratic society is due process and the rule of law and this mass murderer was given due process."[37]
Belgium: Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht believed that carrying out the death penalty on a 69-year-old would be "unethical", as reported by flandersnews.be. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt told the press that "justice has been done", although a spokesman for the Prime Minister later said that Verhofstadt felt that it would have been better to have tried Saddam Hussein at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Canada: Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said "my understanding is there is an appeal process to follow, so given that fact, I think it would be pre-emptive to be passing any judgments or making any firm public declarations until all of those avenues have been exhausted."[38]
India: External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee reacted guardedly to the death sentence, saying such verdicts should not appear to be "victor's justice" and should be acceptable to the people of Iraq and the international community. In a statement, he said "such life and death decisions require credible due process of law."[39]
Ireland: A spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs Minister said "Ireland and its EU partners have made it clear in the past to Iraqi authorities that we are opposed to courts applying the death sentence."[36]
Italy: Prime Minister Romano Prodi said "While not wishing to play down the crimes... I cannot but express the firm opposition of the Italian government - as well as mine - to a death sentence. As I reiterated again today (27 December 2006) at the cabinet meeting, Italy is opposed to capital punishment, always and in all cases. It is a general principle that I reiterated firmly also at the United Nations."[40]
New Zealand: Prime Minister Helen Clark stated that the guilty verdict was appropriate but that she has "a long-standing objection to the death penalty and that will always be a concern to me." She declined to make a comment on whether the trial was fair, saying it was hard to determine from so far away.[41]
Russia: Foreign affairs committee member Konstantin Kosachev made a cautious statement, saying he doubted the death penalty would be carried out. He said, "this is more of a moral ruling, revenge that modern Iraq is taking on the Saddam Hussein regime."[42]
United Kingdom: Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said "it is right that those accused of such crimes against the Iraqi people should face Iraqi justice."[43][44] Prime Minister Tony Blair stated that he is "against the death penalty, whether it is Saddam Hussein or anybody else."[45]
United States: White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said the trial showed "absolute proof" that the judiciary in Iraq are independent.[46] President George W. Bush in a statement said, "Saddam Hussein's trial is a milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law", and "today, the victims of this regime have received a measure of the justice which many thought would never come."[47]
Vatican City: The head of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, opposed the death sentence for Saddam, saying, "For me, punishing a crime with another crime – which is what killing for vindication is – would mean that we are still at the point of demanding an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."[48]
Zimbabwe: The Zimbabwe Exiles Forum in South Africa welcomed Saddam's death sentence, and hoped it sent a message to Zimbabwe's dictator Robert Mugabe, as well as deposed dictators Augusto Pinochet of Chile and former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, saying: