Former Qatari justice minister, Najib al-Nuaimi, is quoted as saying that Iraqis have asked Saddam Hussein's defence team to consider fielding Saddam as a candidate for future elections.
Quote:
"Iraqis have asked the defence team to study the legal conditions to present Saddam Hussein as a candidate for elections, first as an MP then as president. If this contradicts the legal system then president Saddam will be nominated simply as a candidate."
Nuaimi is one of the three foreign lawyers, former US attorney general Ramsey Clark and Jordanian lawyer Issam Ghazzawi being the other two, sworn in by the Iraqi court as members of Saddam's defence at Monday's hearing.
Ghazzawi said:
"As we were leaving Iraq on Tuesday ordinary Iraqis at the airport approached us saying they wished that Saddam would return (as president). These Iraqis said 'we have lost security after Saddam, how we wish he would return'."
Whilst the idea of Saddam standing, and even winning a seat, may be attractive to those who want to humiliate Bush and Blair; it is not right that man who stifled democracy, when he was in charge, should then use it as a "get out of jail card".
More to the point, if the current trial is speeded up, Saddam may find himself facing the death penalty long before he has the opportunity to stand for election.
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