The chief investigative judge in Saddam Hussein's trial, Raid Juhi, has said that there is documentary evidence of over 100,000 victims of the crackdown against Shiites following on from the 1991 Gulf War.
Juhi was visiting two grave sites last Saturday, where skeletons have been unearthed wearing clothes and blindfolds.
Juhi is quoted as saying:
"When the whole search is done, we could announce a number of mass graves and of victims.
Some people were loaded on buses and taken somewhere and those vehicles and buses came back with no people on them."
Although Saddam and seven of his henchmen are currently on trial for the killings of more than 140 Shiites following a 1982 assassination attempt against him, the Iraqi authorities say that there could be over a dozen more trials.
President Jalal Talabani has said that he doubted that any death sentence on Saddam would be carried out, until all the trials were complete.
Herein lies the problem with this approach. By selecting to try Saddam "piece meal", rather than in the form of a catch all Nuremburg style trial, the authorities are allowing him to play for time. It is more than possible that the trials will be ongoing for years, by which time will there be an Iraq left to carry out the final sentence?
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