Irony?

Ever wonder what's happening with Saddam Hussein? Remember all the hoopla, when the man that George W. Bush in 2003 said "has proven he is capable of any crime," was finally dragged out of his so-called "spiderhole" amid promises of peace and justice for the Iraqi people?

There have been little bits and pieces that I have seen either in the newspaper or on television newscasts, giving the impession that to this day, the trial in Iraq charging Mr. Hussein with war crimes dating back 15 years is still in progress.

Today, I decided to see if I could find any information on what was happening. There didn't seem to be much current information from the normal news sources, but I did manage to find an article, published by Jurist (a Web-based legal news and real-time legal research service based out of the University of Pittsburgh Law School) entitled A Farce of Law: The Trial of Saddam Hussein.

The article is written by Curtis Doebbler, an American member of Saddam Hussein's legal defence team. Mr Doebbler claims that Hussein's trial is unfair and orchestrated by the United States, and that the rule of law has been irreparably damaged as a result.

From the article:

The violations of unfair trial are too numerous to mention here, but include almost every provision in article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that could be violated at this juncture of the proceedings.

The inequality of power can be illustrated simply in dollar values. The United States has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting the prosecution of the Iraqi President; the defense lawyers are working as volunteers with hardly enough money to travel to Iraq. The inequality of power can also be illustrated in minutes, days, weeks, and months. The prosecution alleges to have been collecting evidence since at least 1991 — which, of course, could only be true if it were the United States government doing the collecting — and has at least been doing so since April 2003 when dozens of American lawyers and Iraqis who had not lived in Iraq for years were shuttled in to build a case. The defense lawyers, despite requesting visits with their client since December 2003 when he was detained, have to date not been allowed the confidential visits that are necessary to begin to prepare a defense. No visits were allowed with the most senior lawyers until after the trial had started and
at each visit American officials exercise the authority to read any materials brought into the visiting room despite the fact that all meetings remain under close audio and visual surveillance. As if this were not enough, evidence has been withheld from the defense lawyers. They have been denied access to investigative hearings; they have been denied prior notice of witnesses, and they are prevented from even visiting the site of the alleged crime.

All of these rights of the defendant are part of the right to a fair trial under both Iraqi law and international law. This law is merely violated with impunity. The extent of this impunity was evidenced on 24 January of this year when judicial clerk Riza Hasan attempted to return a more than fifty-page brief that had been submitted to the IST claiming that “the judges did not want it.” Perhaps he was explaining why none of the eight motions which have been before the IST for months, including motions on illegality of the IST and disqualification of specific judges, have never received a written reply.

The interference with the independence of the tribunal has permeated all its aspects. Four out of five judges who started the cases have been removed, two by publicly announced interference connected to the United States occupying powers. In September 2005, four prominent statesmen wrote the UN Secretary-General advising him of the threat to participants in the trial in Iraq. These warnings were ignored. Several weeks later two defense lawyers were murdered in a manner suggesting possible involvement of the authorities in Iraq. More recently a possible defense witness was killed when his whereabouts were disclosed to US authorities. Even US President George W. Bush has declared that the trial is on track and that the Iraqi President will be executed.

Such statements coming from judges of the IST also indicate a clear lack of impartiality. In a film by Jean-Pierre Krief for Arte France and KS Visions that was shown in France in 2005, a judge of the tribunal states that the Iraqi President who was then about to go on trial before them had “persecuted the Kurds. He killed them, wiped many of them out. He also used chemical weapons with the aim of committing genocide against this race, against this people, to eradicate them as a nation. He also went after the Shiites due to their religious beliefs.” Another judge states that the President is “one of the worst tyrants in history.” These are not the statements of an impartial judge who in the inquisitorial system of justice is both the evaluator of law and fact.

It certainly seems like there are good reasons that this not be allowed to reach a mainstream audience. There are still those who are not aware of the complete lack of respect for international law or human rights shown by the current US administration. Make no mistake, this is a group that is going to unheard of lengths to dupe all of us into allowing a power scheme like no other come to fruition.