Ibrahim Jaafari, the Prime Minister of Iraq, is applying pressure to magistrates investigating Saddam Hussein for war crimes.
Jaafari wants the trial to start in a month or two. The deadline is due to the fact that there will be an election in December.
This seems to be at variance with the preferred US position for a full war crimes trial; the benefits of which, from the US perspective, would be that they would use the trial to justify the rationale for the invasion of Iraq.
Jaafari told reporters:
"We cannot pinpoint a specific date, maybe a month or two...Maybe Aug. 15 or Sept. 15....But we have succeeded in making the deadline not to exceed three months, instead of being open-ended."
However, tribunal rules are that there must be a 45-day delay between a judge referring a case for trial and courtroom proceedings. The referral can only be once an investigation is complete.
It is considered unlikely that the investigation will finish before mid-August.
Despite the political wish to speed things up, the law must be followed; it is after all going to be the bedrock of a democratic and free Iraq, which is why (so we are all told) the war was started in the first place.
Badea Aref, a lawyer for Tareq Aziz, Saddam Hussein's former deputy prime minister, said:
"No. A thousand times No. They can't do it, not even in September...I even doubt they can do it this year. It is very, very difficult. The investigation needs time. This talk is not about legal facts. It is political rhetoric,".
Saddam and 11 of his top lieutenants are being held at a U.S. military camp at Baghdad airport. A special courtroom is nearly completed in the fortified compound in the city centre, that once housed his presidential palaces.
No comments:
Post a Comment