Iran Wants To Add Their Own Charges Onto Saddams Trial

[Aaron]

CBC

TEHRAN - Iran would submit charges to a Baghdad court trying deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for war crimes and genocide, the Islamic republic's foreign ministry said.

"Iran will definitely submit an indictment to the court, it is ready," an Iranian foreign ministry official said on Sunday.
"The trial should be open and his crimes against Iran should be reviewed," the spokesman added.

Saddam's Iraq – then an ally of the U.S. – launched a war against Iran in 1980, a year after an Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini brought down the longtime U.S. ally ruling Iran, Shah Reza Pahlavi.

Hundreds of thousands died on both sides and Iraq used poison gas against Iranian soldiers and civilians, during the brutal eight-year war that ended in 1988.

Two years later, Saddam decided to attack Kuwait, setting off the 13-year process that led to his fall during a second U.S.-led invasion of his country in 2003.

Saddam will be tried for war crimes and genocide by an Iraqi court after the U.S. last week handed the new Iraqi government legal custody over the country's former ruler.

This is yet another reason why Saddam should be tried at the ICC. That way all countries that have a grievance with him can get justice. Allowing Iran to add their charges onto the Iraqi proceddings will just make a mocery of an already pathetic trial.

[Son of the Suns]

This is yet another reason why Saddam should be tried at the ICC. That way all countries that have a grievance with him can get justice. Allowing Iran to add their charges onto the Iraqi proceddings will just make a mocery of an already pathetic trial.

If Saddam was tried by the ICC then he could not be given the death penalty, since life imprisonment is the maximum punishment that could be imposed. Considering the crimes that he and some of his followers have committed, I would not consider anything less than the death penalty to be justice. Also, the Iraqi people being able to try it's own criminals is an important step in it becomming a soveriegn nation.

As to it being a pathetic trial, I think many people are calling it that just because we know that he has committed crimes that warrent the death penalty, and because of the evidence against him he will be found guilty of those crimes. Just because we know he is guilty doesn't mean that the trial is pathetic, nor does it mean that it is unwarrented.

[KrauserKrauser]

They should just cut to the chase and have the same sort of public executions as they have in Saudi for him.

[Wicked Pilot]

They should just cut to the chase and have the same sort of public executions as they have in Saudi for him.

That would be the expedient thing to do, but we are supposidly in Iraq to bring democracy, human rights, and the rule of law to its people.

[RedImperator]

This is yet another reason why Saddam should be tried at the ICC. That way all countries that have a grievance with him can get justice. Allowing Iran to add their charges onto the Iraqi proceddings will just make a mocery of an already pathetic trial.

You have justification for calling it pathetic, or are you just another wanker crying "show trial!" with nothing to back it up?

[CJvR]

You should be careful about calling for a fair trial against someone as guilty as Saddam... You might get him drawn and quartered.

Let the Iraqis deal with him, they are the ones who suffered the most from his actions. Some people would probably like Saddam in ICC for a few years so he can tell fairytales about how the evil US-Sionist world conspiracy was behind everything he did. Saddams only hope is to make politics of the trial and he has a greater chance of doing that in front of the ICC.

[Coyote]

Buzz here is that the current trials are just "tip o' the iceberg" trials, and that there are many more to come. I haven't heard any rumors about whethere other nations will be drawn into filing complaints, but I think there are some representatives for Kuwait that are interestedin filing complaints.

Again, all rumor mill-- no way to know until it takes form of action. But there are a lot of reasons to do it, after all...

I bet Turkey will move to block some of the complaints, though-- after all, if the Kurdish people file charges, then Turkey will see their representation as a recognition of the Kurdish population as an independent entity.. and may also bring to light the possibility that joint Turkish-Iraqi operations against the PKK may have happened, which wouldn't surprise the cynic in me...

[Gil Hamilton]

You have justification for calling it pathetic, or are you just another wanker crying "show trial!" with nothing to back it up?

Well, it is kind of a show trail, since the major purpose of it is the show the citizens that Saddam is being tried and executed, not determine his guilt. In a fair trail, a person in the court room is presumed innocent till proven guilty, with the implication that if Saddam by some miracle managed to make a brilliant defense and produced loads of evidence in his favor, he could conceivably be found innocent. Yet I just saw on CNN the other day that the Iraqi government was already debating how exactly they were going to execute him and how publicly. Even though Saddam is clearly guilty and deserves to swing, under a fair trial, the state having verdict and sentence already planned out before the opening deliberations are over cannot happen. As it stands, this is a show trail, since the outcome has already been planned and no other outcome is politically possible (can you imagine the fallout in the US and in Iraq if he managed to survive this?). No, this is for the benefit of the citizens of both the US and Iraq and it's not to try him, but to make sure everyone sees him get tried before they cart him off to the gallows as symbolic gesture. A real trial where his innocence is presumed until a jury of his peers finds him guilty this is not.