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• Death Verdict for Saddam Hussein and the Imperial Politics of Assassination
• Letter to Iraqi People from Saddam Hussein
On the Trial of Saddam Hussein
• War Crimes and the Trial of Saddam Hussein: To the Victor Belongs the Judge's Gavel - Siddharth Varadarajan, The Hindu
• Statement of Saddam Hussein's Defense Lawyers
• Victor's Justice - Paul Wolf, Lawyer on Defense Team
• Court Set Up by an Illegal Occupying Power - Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, International Committee for the Defence of President Saddam Hussein
• Saddam Hussein Trial and Death Sentence Are Illegal - BRussels Tribunal
• Proceedings and Death Verdict Against Saddam Hussein by a Puppet Court Are Illegal, Unfair, and Invalid - Prof. Jose Maria Sison, International League of Peoples' Struggle
Death Verdict for Saddam Hussein and the Imperial Politics of Assassination
TML denounces the ruling of the so-called Iraqi High Tribunal Appeals Court to uphold the November 5 death sentence by hanging for former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and various co-defendants. The entire trial of Saddam Hussein by a kangaroo court under U.S. occupation is a new exercise in the politics of assassination perfected by the United States since the Second World War as an instrument of criminalizing politics. Besides the CIA instigated coups d'etat in Iran, Greece and Guatemala in 1953-54, U.S. imperialism was also the driving force behind the assassination of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, the financing of the Contras in Nicaragua, the invasion of Grenada and Panama, the financing of cut-throats in El Salvador and more than 600 assassination attempts against President Fidel Castro. All these criminal activities were means perfected by the United States to make sure the peoples of the world and their governments could not solve a single problem in a peaceful manner on the basis of rule of law.
During the 1980's and 90's, the politics of assassination engineered by the secret agencies of the reactionary Indian state became their preferred instrument to destabilize the people's political movement in Punjab and other parts of India. Since then, the use of assassination to instigate civil wars and wreck any political movements of the peoples has become the norm of the Israeli Zionists in the Palestinian territories and it has been introduced in Lebanon and on a widescale in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries. Bush's so-called war on terror is state terrorism with a licence to kill. The staged trial of Saddam Hussein and death sentences can only be considered in this light. There is no clearer indictment of the U.S. imperialist economic and political system in deep crisis which, to save itself, turns against the peaceful solution of problems.
No amount of justification about fighting terrorism can justify state terrorism, aggression and occupations. Besides anything else, the trial and sentence against Saddam Hussein points to the desperation of the U.S., British and other supporters of the occupation of Iraq to find an exit strategy to the quagmire they have created for themselves. Far from sorting anything out and achieving the so-called reconciliation they talk about, the imposition of a kangaroo court and assassinations after a deeply flawed trial and bogus legal process will never cover up the death and destruction they themselves have rained on Iraq and their own crimes against humanity.
TML calls on all democratic and justice-loving forces to condemn the fraudulent rule of law imposed in Iraq and continue to dissociate themselves from state terrorism, all individual acts of terrorism and violence and the criminalization of politics using assassination as a preferred weapon. All those responsible for these criminal acts must be held to account.
For Your Information
Saddam Hussein was sentenced on November 5 to death by hanging after being found guilty of crimes against humanity in the Dujail case. In this case Saddam Hussein and his seven co-accused were charged for the killing of 148 Shiite villagers after a failed assassination attempt against the President in the town of Dujail in July, 1982.
The Dujail trial commenced before the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (also known as the Iraqi Special Tribunal) in Baghdad on October 19, 2005, and ended on July 27, 2006, with a verdict announced on November 5, 2006. Besides delivering a death sentence for Saddam Hussein, also sentenced to death were Barzan Hassan, Saddam Hussein's half-brother and former head of the Iraqi intelligence agency, and Awad Bandar, the former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court. Taha Yassin Ramadan, the former vice-president of Iraq, was sentenced to life in prison. Three other defendants each received sentences from three to 15 years in jail, and one was acquitted.
Following the verdict, Mr. Hussein had one month to appeal the verdict. Now that the Iraqi High Tribunal Appeals Court has rejected the appeal, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is called upon to sign the official sentencing document. It is expected that the sentence will be carried out forthwith.
The nine-judge appellate court also upheld the death sentences against Barzan Hassan and Awad al-Bander and recommended the execution of former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan, originally sentenced to life in prison.
Mr. Hussein's defence lawyers issued a statement from Amman, Jordan, calling on Arab governments and the United Nations to intervene to stop the execution. "Otherwise, all may be participating in what is going on, either actually or due to their silence in face of these crimes, which are being committed in Iraq in the name of democracy," the lawyers said in an e-mail statement to the Associated Press. The statement, signed by the Defence Committee for President Saddam Hussein, said the court's rejection of Mr. Hussein's appeal was part of the "continued shedding of pure Iraqi blood by the current regime in Iraq, which (is) directly connected with the American occupation."
Amnesty International repeated its opposition to the death penalty as a matter of principle "but particularly in this case because it comes after a flawed trial."
Letter to Iraqi People from Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein said his execution would be a "sacrifice for Iraq" and called on Iraqis to unite and fight U.S. forces, in a letter written shortly after the initial verdict on November 5. The letter was published on the website of the Baath Party on December 27. Associated Press reports that its authenticity was verified by a member of his legal team, lawyer Issam Ghazzawi. In the letter he states that he was writing because his lawyers had told him the court would give him an opportunity to make a final statement.
"But that court and its chief judge did not give us the chance to say a word, and issued its verdict without explanation and read out the sentence -- dictated by the invaders -- without presenting the evidence," it said.
"Here I offer myself in sacrifice. If God almighty wishes, it (my soul) will take me where he orders to be with the martyrs," Saddam said in the hand-written letter obtained from his defense lawyers in Jordan.
"If my soul goes down this path (of martyrdom) it will face God in serenity."
"You have known your brother and leader as you have known your own family. He has not bowed down to the tyrants and remained a sword against them," the letter reads.
"Oh great people, I call on you preserve the values that enabled you to be worthy of carrying out shouldering the faith and to be the light of civilization," the letter said.
"Your unity stands against falling into servitude." Saddam added: "Oh brave, pious Iraqis in the heroic resistance. Oh sons of the one nation, direct your enmity toward the invaders. Do not let them divide you ... Long live jihad (holy war) and the mujahdeen against the invaders."
He also called on the Iraqi people "not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking. I also call on you not to hate the people of the other countries that attacked us.
"You should know that among the aggressors, there are people who support your struggle against the invaders, and some of them volunteered for the legal defense of prisoners, including Saddam Hussein," referring to former U.S. attorney Ramsay Clark, a member of Saddam's defense team. "Others revealed the scandals of the aggressors and condemned them," the letter said.
(Sources: Sabah, Associated Press)
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On the Trial of Saddam Hussein
War Crimes and the Trial of Saddam Hussein:
To the Victor Belongs the Judge's Gavel
- Siddharth Varadarajan, The Hindu, November 6, 2006 -
The show trial of Saddam Hussein was not just a violation of international legal norms by a court operating under the reality of foreign occupation but also an insult to the victims in whose name this political farce was enacted.
Throughout History, law and war have been uncomfortable companions, each acknowledging the importance of the other but unwilling to compromise on the integrity of its domain. And yet, when the scales of justice meet musket and bomb, it is usually the logic and exigencies of war that prevail over the norms of law -- with the task of explication and synthesis left for future generations of generals and jurists to work out.
So it was that the horrors of World War I eventually gave rise to prohibitions on the use of chemical and poisonous weapons, and the deliberate bombing of civilians during World War II to the Geneva Conventions. International trials were conducted at Nuremberg and Tokyo and the top leadership of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan condemned for a range of war crimes and crimes against humanity. With the atomic devastation of Japan weighing heavily on his mind, the lone Indian judge, Radha Binod Pal, gave a dissenting opinion on the Tokyo tribunal, questioning the right of victors -- who were perhaps as guilty of crimes of their own -- to pass judgment on the vanquished. His disquiet was unfashionable but prescient, with the evolution of international legal thinking finally validating his key concern. Sixty years after Little Boy massacred the people of Hiroshima, there is little dispute that the use of nuclear weapons is illegal and would constitute a crime against humanity.
Despite the arguable taint of victor's justice, however, there was at least one vital sense in which Nuremberg represented a significant advance in humanity's quest to subordinate war to law. The tribunal concluded that aggression was the supreme international crime, the fount of "accumulated evil" from which flowed every other violation that the world found so reprehensible about Hitler and Tojo. Though international attempts to control and punish aggression have so far proved highly elusive, the experience of the past 60 years has confirmed many times over the correctness of that important legal pronouncement.
That is why, of all the historical analogies invoked to justify the trial and sentencing to death of Saddam Hussein, perhaps none is more inappropriate than Nuremberg. For the arrest and trial of the former President of Iraq, not to speak of the death of 654,965 Iraqis who would otherwise have been alive, all flow from the U.S. government's illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003. By any legal, political or moral yardstick, what President George W. Bush and his administration did in attacking Iraq constitutes the supreme international crime of aggression.
But if not Nuremberg, is there another reference point? During his presidency, Mr. Hussein committed numerous crimes against his own people and his neighbours. While the architecture for international criminal accountability is still evolving, the Iraqi people, as an expression of their sovereignty, certainly have the right and duty to hold him accountable in a domestic court of law. As the culture of impunity makes way for justice, this is precisely what sovereign people are trying to do in Chile and other countries in Latin America. Though the temptation to resort to summary trial is enormous, these societies have realised the restitutive, cathartic value of respecting the rule of law, including the requirements of due process. Verdicts produced the hard way have far more value, especially in divided societies, than the easy exertions of a kangaroo court.
Unfortunately for Iraq, the Iraqi people are today not sovereign in their own land. The tribunal established by the U.S. occupation and its Iraqi surrogates is intended to serve the political purpose of legitimising a war that ought never to have happened. So outrageous has been the conduct of the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (SICT), so biased have been its procedures and norms, that the verdict pronounced on Sunday -- coincidentally timed for just before crucial mid-term polls in the U.S. -- was a foregone conclusion. As pointed out by jurists at the time, the SICT's rules of procedure were rigged by U.S. advisers from the start to favour the prosecution side. Just to be on the safe side, most of the SICT judges were sent to Britain, one of the invading and occupying powers, for legal 'training.'
The trial for the massacre of 148 people at al-Dujail village in 1982 began in October 2005 and ended in June this year when the presiding judge, Raouf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman, abruptly terminated the defence side's arguments and presentation of witnesses. Mr. Abdel-Rahman had been carefully handpicked to run the court. An earlier presiding judge, Rizgar Mohammed Amin, was forced to resign after pressure from the puppet Iraqi authorities that he was too lenient on the former President.
UN Working Group's Opinion
Mr. Hussein may appeal to the special Cassation Panel but the rules of the SICT state there is no further possibility for appeal or pardon and that the death warrant must be executed within 30 days of his appeal's disposition.
On September 1, 2006, concerned at the accumulating evidence of bias in the SICT's proceedings, the United Nations' Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) called for the trial to be replaced by an international tribunal. Established by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1991, the Working Group's mandate is defined both by the UN General Assembly and the new UN Human Rights Council, which the Bush administration itself rooted for. In its final opinion on September 1, the Working Group concluded: "The deprivation of liberty of Mr. Saddam Hussein is arbitrary, being in contravention of Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iraq and the U.S. are parties."
The UN Working Group described Mr. Hussein's detention and trial as a "Category III" case under its mandate, defined as a situation where "the complete or partial non-observance of the relevant international standards set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the relevant international instruments accepted by the States concerned relating to the right to a fair trial is of such gravity as to confer on the deprivation of liberty, of whatever kind, an arbitrary character."
Among the issues highlighted in the Working Group's opinion was the serious and repeated violation of Article 14 of the ICCPR, which concerns a detainee's right to a defence and a fair trial. More specifically, the WGAD found that Mr. Hussein did not enjoy the right to be tried by an independent and impartial tribunal as required by Article 14(1) of the ICCPR. "The presiding judge of the chamber trying Saddam Hussein changed twice, as the result of political pressure. The current presiding judge is reported to have made statements incompatible with impartiality and the presumption of innocence enshrined in Article 14(2) of the ICCPR. The known circumstances surrounding the changes of the presiding judge of the trial chamber render the fact that the identities of the other judges composing the chamber are not known all the more preoccupying... Neither the defendants nor the public are in a position to verify whether these judges meet the requirements for judicial office, whether they are affiliated with political forces, whether their impartiality and independence is otherwise undermined."
The UN Working Group also concluded that Mr. Hussein "did not get adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence," as mandated by Article 14(3) of the ICCPR. "The severe restriction on access to top lawyers of his own choosing and the presence of U.S. officials at such meetings violated his right to communicate with counsel. The assassination of two of his counsel during the course of his trial, Mr. Sadoun al-Janabi on 20 October 2005 and Mr. Khamis el-Obeidi on 21 June 2006 seriously undermined his right to defend himself through counsel of his own choosing."
Finally, Mr. Hussein, according to WGAD, did not enjoy the possibility to "obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same condition as witnesses against him," as required by Article 14(3)(e) of the ICCPR. "This guarantee was undermined by the failure to adequately disclose prosecution evidence to the defendants, the reading into the record of affidavits without an adequate possibility for the defence to challenge them and the sudden decision of the presiding judge to cut short the defence case on 13 June 2006."
So pitiable has been the legal procedure that the defence was not even afforded the chance of making its final written submissions to the court, as specified by the SICT's own rules. In their final plea, on the eve of the pronouncement of Sunday's verdict, Mr. Hussein's defence team argued that at the very least the court should comply with this legal requirement. But their plea fell on deaf ears because justice and law is not what the trial and tribunal are all about. Whatever his own sins, Mr. Hussein is being hanged to expiate for the transgressions of those who defied international law, world opinion, and common sense to invade and occupy Iraq in 2003. For them, sadly, there is no court where they could be arraigned. At least not today.
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Statement of Saddam Hussein's Defense Lawyers
The Presiding Judge of the First Trial Panel
Peace be upon you,
Sub./ Finalization of the procedures of the case No.(1st.crim.2005) -- "the so-called Dujail case"
It has been reported that the Court will issue its judgment in the above-mentioned case on November 5, 2006. We want to state the following:
1- The due procedures of this case have not completed in order for a sentence to be announced according to article no. (156) of the (Iraqi) Civil Procedural Law. The Court has not yet received the final defense submissions, which have already been handed to it. Although one of our (protected) colleagues was delegated by the Defense Committee and by his other colleagues to submit our submissions to the Court, in compliance with the decision of the same court in its session no. (39) Of July 27, 2006, which provides that the Court will "admit the deposition of the defense lawyer's and their client's submissions during the adjournment period of time, which ends on the 16th of October 2006. Our delegated colleague has done the following to this end:
a) On Sept 4 2006, he submitted a request to the Court to meet the Presiding Judge, in order to confer with him about the submission of the final defense submissions and to let the lawyers present them during the proceedings of 16 October 2006. Or to add these submissions to the file of the case in order to be considered and reviewed by the Court. We have not reached any conclusion on this matter.
b) On 4th of October 2006, our colleagues met with the left-hand judge Basil Abdul-Latif (member of the panel) and the Chief Prosecution in order to submit the final defense submissions and to present them before the Court.
c) After judge Basil Abdul-Latif received the submissions, he made some comments about the form of them. We accepted his comments in full and our colleague was supposed to return to the Green Zone after two days to submit the submissions to the Court.
d) Our colleague stayed inside the Green Zone for (14) days, trying to submit the submissions to the Court, but to no avail. The submissions were handed to a translator who works for the Court, in order to submit them, but we have not yet reached any results.
e) On 14th of October 2006, our colleagues: lawyer Khalil Dolaimi, Dr.Curtis Doebbler and lawyer Issam Ghazawi traveled to Baghdad. The sole aim of this journey was to deposit the final edited submissions at the Court. That was with the knowledge of the Defense Committee members and the other colleagues. They submitted a formal request to have a meeting to submit the submissions, but nobody has responded to their request, so we were obliged to send the submissions to the Court by e-mail on the 16th of October 2006.
2- Our clients are entitled to the rights, which are provided for in Para. (b) of article (19) of the law of the Iraqi High Criminal Court. Among these is our client's right to have the adequate time and facilities to prepare their defense. After the defense submissions were prepared by the clients and their legal council, the Court refused to receive and review them, as part of the documents of the above mentioned case which deems the Court as lacking the requirements of a fair trial as provided for in international law and which violates the right to have a defense -- a right which is guaranteed both legally and constitutionally.
3- Moreover, article (14.3.b) of the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights confirms this right of having proper time and facilities to prepare a defense. This right is reaffirmed by article (14.3.c) of the same Covenant and principles 1, 5 and 6 of the Basic Principles of the Rule of Lawyers. The right to a fair trial is one of the standards of international human rights law and it aims at protecting the individuals from any deprivation or derogation of their basic rights in any illegal or arbitrary manner.
4- We, as a defense committee, in addition to our other colleagues, are confident that our clients are innocent of any of the charges that are alleged to them, in particular, after the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention rendered its opinion no.31/2006 on the 1st of September 2006, which, states in its paragraph no.(27) that: "In the light of the forgoing, the Working Group renders the following opinion:
The deprivation of liberty for Mr.Saddam Hussein is arbitrary, being in contravention of article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Iraq and the United States are parties, and fall within category III of the categories applicable to the consideration of the cases submitted to the Working Group."
Paragraph 28 of the same opinion also states that: "As a consequence of the opinion rendered, the Working Group requests the Governments of Iraq and the United States to take the necessary steps to remedy the situation of Mr.Saddam Hussein and to bring it into conformity with the principles set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."
5- Since the provisions on International Humanitarian law and the International Human Rights law are mandatory provisions that should not be violated, the Defense Committee and the other Defense lawyers, confirm that the law of the Court and its Rules of Procedure gravely violate the obligatory rules of the above mentioned laws.
We request the Court to:
First -- To agree that the final submissions of the defense lawyers and their clients be presented before the Court.
Second -- To decide on another date for the proceedings. Not before, at least sixty days, to present the defense submissions, so that the new data may be suitable for the Court, the lawyers and their clients.
Third -- That the final defense submissions are added to the file of the above-mentioned case, and that the Court should consider and review these submissions in particular because these submissions contain documents and evidence that may affect and be productive in the whole course of the case.
The Presiding Judge:
There is only one explanation for the Court's refusal to respond to our lawful requests and for its continued ignorance to them. It is that this is a trial which has a political purpose to convict President Saddam Hussein in order to keep pace with the occupying invador's policy to get use of such a decisions (of conviction) and to utilize it for electoral objectives as been illustrated by President Saddam Hussein in a letter he sent to the Court on the 22nd of October 2006. For this, the Court bears the moral, legal and historical responsibilities before the Iraqi people and the world.
With due respect
Badir Awwad Al-Bandar
Mem. of the Defense Committee & attorney for Mr.Awwad Al-Bandar
Wadoud Fawzi Shams Eddin
Mem. of the Defense Committee
Khalil Dolaimi
President of the Defense Committee.
Lawyer
Ramsey Clark
Mem. of the Defense Committee
USA Lawyer
Dr.Ahemd Siddiq
Mem. of the Defense Committee
Tunisia Lawyer
Mohammed Munieb
Mem. of the Defense Committee
Egypt Lawyer
Ziyad Najdawi
Mem. of the Defense Committee
Jordan
Lawyer Javier Saavedra
Mem. of the Defense Committee
Spain
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Victor's Justice
- Paul Wolf*, Lawyer on Defence Team -
The Iraqi high tribunal has just announced the death sentence of Saddam Hussein. This should surprise no one. In fact, no other outcome was ever possible. From the moment he was captured in his underground hideout, Saddam's fate was sealed.
Saddam and the others were convicted for crimes that happened almost 25 years ago. One hundred forty-eight members of the pro-Iranian Da'wa Party were executed for attempting to assassinate Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. The executions followed a two-year investigation, involving the torture and imprisonment of entire families, and judicial findings that 148 people were guilty of sedition for supporting Iran in the war and plotting to kill their own president.
While none of us would condone the mass execution of 148 people, we know little about what actually happened. Anonymous witnesses were brought forth, and in some cases the witnesses did not even appear, but submitted affidavits instead. These people testified to the terrible experiences they and their loved ones had in prison.
But whether they received fair trials, or were summarily executed, no one really knows. The transcripts of the 1982 proceedings, and the evidence used to convict the defendants, were excluded from the trial. It's ironic that Saddam will be executed, in essence, for the unfair way in which these people were dealt with, yet his own trial was so unfair that the earlier proceedings and evidence were inadmissible.
Many have commented on the unfairness of Saddam's trial. Some have remarked that the trial was a political circus, searching for reasons to justify the Iraq war and the ongoing occupation by U.S.-led forces. Yet few see the larger issue, which is that the court itself is illegal under international law, setting a terrible precedent that overshadows the need to avenge crimes of the Iran-Iraq War.
Let's recall what happened. First, there was a lot of hysteria about Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction and support of al-Qaeda. Of course, none of it was true. By 2003, Iraq had been blockaded for 13 years and couldn't threaten the United States or anyone else.
Nevertheless, the United Nations was maneuvered into putting more and more pressure on Iraq, with weapons inspectors crawling all over the country, frustrated and blamed for their failure to find anything. This culminated in the passage of Security Council Resolution 1441, which threatened Iraq with "serious consequences" if it did not fully cooperate with the inspections. The equivocal Hans Blix could never give Iraq a clean bill of health, and his reports were read to insinuate that Iraq did indeed have something to hide.
Yet Resolution 1441 contained no enforcement provision. It had been understood that the Security Council would have to pass further resolutions on sanctions if Iraq remained in non-compliance. Even John Negroponte, then the U.S. ambassador to the UN, said that Resolution 1441 contained no "hidden triggers" and no "automaticity."
Washington's threats to attack Iraq unilaterally were not well received internationally. Russia, China and France, three of the permanent members of the Security Council, were opposed to a preemptive U.S. attack. On March 5, 2003, France, Germany and Russia issued a joint statement vowing to block any resolution authorizing the use of force. Just two weeks later, the U.S. began the invasion.
Under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, only the Security Council can authorize military attacks to enforce resolutions. Otherwise, the use of military force is only permitted in self-defense. The Security Council did not authorize the U.S. war in Iraq. The International Court of Justice has held that preemptive attacks violate customary international law as well as the UN Charter.
To make matters worse, at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, the United States and Iraq had agreed to a ceasefire, the terms of which were set forth in UN Resolution 687. That ceasefire was still in force when the U.S. attacked Iraq. By any measure, the U.S. attack on Iraq was illegal.
Then the United States invaded and occupied Iraq, set up a new government and put the old government on trial. Not for weapons of mass destruction. Not for violating the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Not for violating any Security Council resolution. In fact, the president of Iraq was held for two and a half years before he was even charged with a crime.
To charge him, the occupying power had to set up a special court and create special new laws. The process violated so many principles of international law that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan asked jurists around the world not to participate in it.
Unlike the ad hoc tribunals on Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, the trial of Saddam Hussein has been the justice of a military victor in war. If we look back in history, the last example of that was at Nuremberg. That's how far the clock has been rolled back.
The Americans argue, of course, that the U.S. did not put Saddam Hussein on trial - the Iraqi people did so themselves. They did so, however, under the thumb of the U.S. military, which controls every aspect of the trial, including what is broadcast on television.
Michael Sharf, a law professor at Case Western University involved in training the Iraqi judges, last month referred to a "300-or-so-page judgment" of the court that is supposed to sort out all the legal problems when it's released. There's little doubt that the judgment is still being translated into Arabic.
In fact, the legitimacy of the government of Iraq is itself questionable, because the elections were rigged by the U.S.. The United States determined which candidates were permitted on the ballot, and funded the campaigns of its favorites. Saddam Hussein, of course, was disqualified from running. Nuri al-Maliki, an old member of the Da'wa Party of Iran, won the election and is now prime minister of Iraq. Victor's justice, all around.
* Paul Wolf is a lawyer in Washington, DC, who has worked on the defense of Saddam Hussein. Documents from the case can be found at www.international-lawyers.org and at www.law.case.edu/saddamtrial.
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Court Set Up by an Illegal Occupying Power
- Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, Member, International Committee for the Defence of President Saddam Hussein, November 8, 2006 -
As a member of the International Committee for the Defence of President Saddam Hussein, to oversee the trial of Saddam Hussein I would like to express my horror and disgust over the trial and sentencing of Saddam Hussein to death by hanging;
Firstly a court set up by his enemies has no right to try Saddam Hussein. Since the inception of the trial, the International Committee and the Panel of Lawyers in the defence of President Saddam Hussein have repeatedly pointed out that the court set up by an illegal occupying power has no jurisdiction whatsoever to conduct the said proceedings. If Saddam Hussein is to be tried, it should be by an international court of judges drawn from countries uninvolved in the Iraqi invasion and occupation. The members of the International Committee have demanded that in order for justice to be done and seen to be done, the trial court and the judges must be independent and without bias, and be able to discharge their duties without fear or favour. The Chief Judge that presided in the early part of the proceedings resigned in protest against the blatant interference by the Iraqi regime installed by the occupying power. He was replaced by a judge who had no qualms in disregarding all established principles of fair trial and was willing to hand down a judgment inconsistent with the evidence adduced.
In the course of the proceedings, lawyers representing President Saddam Hussein and his co-accused were threatened and brutally murdered. Witnesses were also intimidated. This fact alone would render any verdict handed down by the court to be manifestly unjust and contrary to all established principles of a fair trial.
There were no evidence that President Saddam Hussein was involved in the killings of Shiites in 1982. Yet the Court found him guilty. The Court was a Kangaroo Court set up for the sole purpose of rendering a guilty verdict. It was a Nuremberg type court, manifestly biased and incapable of being just.
If President Sadam Hussein was guilty as charged, then President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair should be tried for the unlawful invasion and occupation of Iraq and the death of over 650,000 Iraqis and the brutal torture of thousands of innocent men, women and children in Abu Ghraib and Guatanamo Bay.
President Bush Senior, President Clinton and President Bush Jr should also be tried for the sanctions against Iraq which caused the death of more than half-a-million children and the use of illegal weapons such as depleted uranium, cluster bombs, phosphrous bombs etc.
For all these reasons, as a member of the International Committee overseeing the trial of Saddam Hussein, I condemn the death sentence passed on Saddam Hussein. It is a travesty of justice and unworthy of the present stage of human civilisation.
Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad
November 7, 2006
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Saddam Hussein Trial and Death Sentence Are Illegal
- BRussels Tribunal, November 5, 2006 -
The BRussells Tribunal (Bertrand Russell Tribunal) has already alerted World public opinion on June 29 that the proceedings against Mr. Hussein should be halted. We raised fundamental legal questions about the detention and trial of Mr. Hussein in light of existing rules of the laws and customs of war (humanitarian law), and the laws established under the international system of human rights. These bodies of law are binding on all judicial actions.
We confirm that neither the Special Tribunal nor its verdict issued today are legal or could serve the cause of peace and justice. We ask all people who believe in peace and justice to condemn the U.S. illegal occupation and illegal actions, including Mr Hussein's trial.
We notice that most Human Right Organisations have also condemned the proceedings of the trial and today's verdict. Amnesty International's Malcolm Smart declared: "Obviously we deplore the verdict of the death penalty against Saddam and one of his co-accused. We don't consider it was a fair process. The court was not impartial. There were not adequate steps taken to protect the security of defence lawyers and witnesses... "
We also notice the double standards of the brutal occupation forces and its puppet government. With rivers of blood flowing on the streets of Baghdad, the whole Saddam trial looks meaningless! It does not mark the prevailing of justice nor the rule of law!
There are Iraqi political figures in power, who are linked to the sectarian killing and the death squads, when will they be held accountable? We hope that the U.S. and it's puppet government come to their senses and stop all proceedings against Mr. Hussein, cancel the verdict, stop the illegal occupation of Iraq, get the foreign troops out, and leave Iraq to the Iraqis. Dirk Adriaensens (member of the BRussells Tribunal Executive Committee). Abdul Ilah Al Bayaty (member of the BRussells Tribunal Advisory Committee).
Declaration on the Legal Necessity to Halt the Proceedings
Against POW President Saddam Hussein
1. On June 21, 2006, attorney Khamis al-Obaidi was killed in Baghdad. He is the third defense counsel for Mr. Saddam Hussein to be killed, joining Mr. Sadoun al-Janabi, killed in October 2005 and Adel al-Zubaidi, killed in November 2005. Attorney Thamir al-Khuzaie was wounded in the November incident.
2. Attorney al-Obaidi was the ninth person connected with the trial of Mr. Hussein to be killed, prompting another attorney in the case, Najeeb al-Naimi (former Qatari minister of justice), to state: "there is no security. All of us have received threats."
3. The murder of yet another defense counsel has prompted many concerned with the overall situation in Iraq to question whether all proceedings should be halted due to the undue risk of the participants' lives and safety. While agreeing that proceedings should be halted on safety grounds, we also have more fundamental legal questions about the detention and trial of Mr. Hussein in light of existing rule of law and customs of war (humanitarian law), and the laws established under the international system of human rights. These bodies of law are binding on all judicial actions.
4. In order to sort out all the possible irregularities if not violations of fair trial rules from both humanitarian and human rights law, we must first state that Mr. Hussein is a prisoner of war. This is because he was the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Iraq in the war by the United States against Iraq. As a POW, he is entitled to all provisions of Geneva Convention III of 1949, Protocol Additional I to the Geneva Conventions, and all binding customary humanitarian law relating to confinement of POWs. Of particular note in this regard is Article 22 of Geneva Convention III, which provides that POWs may not be held in penitentiaries unless in the interest of the POWs themselves. It appears that Article 22 is being violated in the confinement of Mr. Hussein, and we also question whether there is full application of the rights set out in Articles 25-27 regarding other conditions. In this light we urge that the authorities allow full access of the International Committee of the Red Cross or other competent organization to assess the conditions of confinement. It appears that the U.S. has clear physical control over Mr. Hussein.
5. Of key importance in this situation is to determine who may try Mr. Hussein and for what acts. While the invasion of Iraq by the United States forces was illegal, the Geneva Conventions nonetheless apply, and under provisions of the Geneva Convention, the United States, as the Occupying Power, may charge and try Mr. Hussein for acts in contravention of humanitarian law. Whether an Occupying Power could try a POW for human rights violations occurring outside the context of the armed conflict raises serious questions. (That question was only partially raised in the Astiz case: Mr. Astiz was captured in the Malvinas War, but was alleged to have participated in human rights violations in Argentina. Several States wanted to try him for those violations, but he was instead returned to Argentina by the Protecting Power).
The United States, for political reasons, did not want to try Mr. Hussein itself because Mr. Hussein had not committed any actionable offenses against the United States, either during the U.S.-Iraqi war or at any other time. Further, the United States would not have been able to validly sentence Mr. Hussein unless as a result of a proceeding in the same courts as it uses for its own armed forces (Article 102), provided that a number of other conditions are met. The United States could turn Mr. Hussein to a neutral State (or in Geneva Convention language Protecting Power), but also for political reasons did not choose to do so.
In fact, the United States has not authorized any State[s] as Protecting Power[s]. However, as the Astiz case suggests, a Protecting Power itself can neither try a person under its protection in its own courts for criminal acts committed in another State, nor turn a Protected Person over to a third party State. The United States could also try Mr. Hussein in its own civil courts "if its laws permit civil courts jurisdiction over its own armed forces (Article 84). Instead, the United Stated turned Mr. Hussein over to a specially constituted "court" of occupied Iraq, supposedly under the command of a judicial system controlled by the "Iraqi" government. The "Iraqi" government, however, is not an independent State, but one controlled by the Occupying Power.
In the situation in Iraq, there is essentially no functioning, independent judiciary, and there had not been any provision in the old judicial system for trying POWs in civilian courts. The Occupying Power destroyed any possibility of Iraqi military tribunals as the venue for trying Mr. Hussein. The Iraqi court is inherently biased and fails to meet minimum standards of impartiality. The situation, then, is one of total judicial abnormality with a lack of legal authority. Accordingly, the trial of Mr. Hussein should be halted until such time as there is a court with proper legal authority and with jurisdiction over the alleged acts at issue.
6. While the court itself is a legal aberration and must be halted on that ground alone, it is still important to point out that in the process as a whole, there have been numerous violations of other minimum requirements for either military or civil courts, as set out in Article 9 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. So even if there may be some grounds for "legalizing" an illegal tribunal, the proceedings in themselves would require nullification of either imposition of or carrying out any sentence.
7. It is important to note that the crimes that Mr. Hussein is currently charged with did not take place in the context of the current war: in fact they did not take place in the context of any war and thus are not actionable as breaches of the Geneva Conventions or other instruments or principles of humanitarian law. The alleged crimes are criminal law violations, not war crimes. Conditions in Iraq preclude meaningful, impartial investigation into the events, and even if a proper-constituted court were to be established, fair trial rules relating to evidence may be impossible to meet.
8. The trial of Mr. Hussein is taking place in a context of the daily commission of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions by the Occupying Power. Under such conditions alone, the trial should be halted as impossible under the circumstances.
9. The 1945 Nuremberg Charter states clearly: "To initiate a war of aggression ... is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." The UN Charter and its Definition of Aggression (GA Res. 3314) reinforce this rule. Since the invasion under the Nuremberg and UN Charters was utterly illegal, all that followed from it is illegal, from Mr. Bremer's laws to the new constitution to the trial of Mr. Hussein.
10. For the reasons set out above, the current judicial proceedings against Mr. Hussein should be halted. The provisions of Geneva Convention III relating to Protecting Powers and POWs should be implemented regarding Mr. Hussein and all similarly situated persons of the government in place at the time of the invasion of Iraq who are detained in Iraq. All persons involved with the proceedings must be fully protected. To all those who respect international legality: Please raise your voice against the constant breaking of international rules governing Mr. Saddam Hussein's trial.
The BRussells Tribunal, in defence of international law, and in solidarity with the defense counsel and staff and with the families of those killed.
29 June 2006
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Proceedings and Death Verdict Against
Saddam Hussein by a Puppet Court Are Illegal,
Unfair, and Invalid
- Prof. Jose Maria Sison*, International League of Peoples' Struggle, November 7, 2006 -
The proceedings and death verdict against Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq, by a court of the puppet government under the U.S. Occupation in Iraq are illegal, unfair and invalid.
The court is a product and instrument of U.S. aggression. As the 1945 Nuremberg Charter states, "To initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
The U.S. invasion of Iraq was made on the basis of lies and in violation of the UN Charter. Contrary to the claims of Bush, the Hussein government of Iraq did not have any weapons of mass destruction, did not have any connection with al Qaida and did not pose any threat to the U.S.
Under the Nuremberg and UN Charters, everything that has followed the U.S. aggression is illegal, from Mr. Bremer's laws under the so-called coalition authority to the so-called new constitution of the puppet government.
Saddam Hussein is supposed to be a prisoner of war of the U.S. under the Geneva Conventions and is in fact under the custody of the U.S. military. In this connection, he cannot be tried under the U.S. Occupation for any alleged crime committed before the war of aggression unleashed in 2003.
The unfairness of the trial of Saddam Hussein has been underscored among others by the series of murders of his lawyers (as well as the lawyers of his co-defendants) and by the politically motivated substitution of judges. Even the timing of the death sentence on Hussein on Sunday, November 5 is meant to influence the impending November 7 midterm elections in favour of the Republican party of Bush.
The charge against Hussein and his co-defendants for having allegedly murdered 143 people in retaliation for a failed assassination attempt on his life in 1982 pales in comparison to the far more colossal crime of aggression perpetrated by the U.S. against the Iraqi people.
The U.S. has already killed more than 650,000 Iraqi people since 2003, not to mention the death of more than 1.5 million Iraqis, including more than 500,000 children, during the 12-year period of bombings and economic sanctions from 1991 onwards. The killing rampage of the U.S. is unabated. The U.S. has also incurred nearly 3000 U.S. death casualties and nearly 40,000 wounded casualties.
U.S. imperialism is the plundering and murdering monster in the eyes of the Iraqi people and the people of the world. As the imperialist chieftain, Bush should be brought to court for having committed the worst possible crime, which is aggression. His crimes against humanity are incomparable to the charges being levelled against Saddam Hussein who has emerged as a patriot and martyr in the eyes of so many Iraqis and Arabs.
The brutal occupation of Iraq by the U.S. and its accomplices is inciting the people of Iraq to wage armed resistance to attain national liberation and democracy.
* Prof. Jose Maria Sison is Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee International League of Peoples' Struggle.
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