Iraq's Special Tribunal announced on Sunday July 17 that it had filed charges against the country's former leader, Saddam Hussein. The announcement ends weeks of speculation about whether Saddam would appear as a defendant in the tribunal's first case. The tribunal said that the trial date could be announced "within days."
The Special Tribunal will hold separate trials for each of the crimes it decides to prosecute -- so Saddam could appear as defendant in several separate cases. The first trial will relate to events in the town of Dujayl, where an assassination attempt against Saddam in 1982 led to widespread executions and other punishments.
It is thought that Dujayl has been chosen as the tribunal's first case because it is a relatively contained incident where prosecutors have faced a less complex task assembling evidence than will be the case with other charges.
For a detailed report on the tribunal, the evidence gathering process, and the Dujayl incident, see this recent story.
Related
Links
Iraqi
Special Tribunal
Institute
for War and Peace Reporting Iraq Programme
Iraq: State of the Evidence
Human Rights Watch Report
November 2004
Saddam Faces Trial for a Range of Charges
By Paul Garwood
Associated Press, June 6, 2005
(via The Los Angeles Times)
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