- BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraqi officials
expressed fear Saturday that a Pentagon decision to declare Saddam Hussein
a prisoner of war will prevent them from putting the ousted dictator on
trial. The international Red Cross, however, said PoW status does not preclude
a war crimes prosecution.
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- U.S. officials in Baghdad sought to assure Iraqis that
no deal was made to keep them from trying the ousted dictator for war crimes
and crimes against humanity.
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- Iraq will have a "substantial leadership role"
when the former leader faces trial, said Dan Senor, a spokesman for the
U.S.-led occupation authority.
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- "There is no need for concern by anybody because
the ultimate designation (of Saddam's status) will be determined down the
road," Senor told a news conference Saturday.
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- On Friday, a Pentagon spokesman, Maj. Michael Shavers,
said the U.S. Defence Department's top civilian lawyers have determined
that Saddam - held in U.S. custody and under CIA interrogation since his
capture last month - is a prisoner of war because of his status as former
commander-in-chief of Iraq's military.
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- PoW status under the Geneva Convention grants Saddam
certain rights, including access to visits by the International Committee
of the Red Cross, and freedom from coercion of any kind during interrogations.
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- No Red Cross representatives have yet seen Saddam, whom
the United Stats says is held in a safe location. Iraqi officials say he
is being held in the Baghdad area. In Geneva, Ian Piper, a spokesman for
the Red Cross, said handing Saddam over to the Iraqis for trial would not
conflict with the 1949 Geneva Convention on the conduct of warfare, as
long as he is granted due process.
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- It is up to the United States, as Iraq's occupier, to
determine how Saddam is to be tried, Piper told The Associated Press.
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- "The status means that he's recognized as a formal
combatant and therefore cannot be accused for having waged war," Piper
said. But Piper he added that Saddam's prisoner of war status "does
not give him immunity from accusations of crimes against humanity."
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- Piper said that national courts have the power to try
people who break international war crimes conventions. "It's supposed
to be part of national law, and one would expect the national law to apply
at the end of the conflict."
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- The Geneva Convention says that a PoW can only be tried
by the same courts as a member of the detaining country's military would
be tried - a military court or a civilian court as the law allows. The
convention make no specific mention of war crimes or crime against humanity.
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- Saddam's capture had brought a sense of relief to many
Iraqis who suffered under his 23 years of iron-fisted rule.
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- But on the streets of the Iraqi capital Saturday, some
Iraqis speculated that the Americans were trying to deny Iraq the chance
to try Saddam for fear he would expose secret contacts between Washington
and Baghdad, especially during Iraq's 1980-88 war against Iran.
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- The West provided Baghdad with arms to prevent an Iranian
victory that would have threatened its Middle East interests.
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- Ibrahim al-Basri, a physician, said he believed PoW status
was part of "a bargain between Saddam and the United States."
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- "He handed them Iraq," al-Basri said. "If
the Americans wanted to clone an agent to serve them, they wouldn't find
a better one than Saddam. He brought the Americans to the Gulf, divided
the Arabs, destroyed Iraq and its weapons, threatened Syria and Iran."
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- The United States has said it plans to hand Saddam over
to the Iraqis for trial. But that is not expected to happen before sovereignty
is handed back to an Iraqi government by July 1, the date designated for
the formal end of the U.S.-led occupation.
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- Saddam's PoW designation raised concerns among many Iraqis
that it would keep him out of an Iraqi court - and made some suspicious
that the Americans want it that way.
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- "I am surprised by this decision," said Dara
Nor al-Din, a former appeals court judge and member of Iraq's U.S.-appointed
Governing Council. "We still consider Saddam a criminal, and he will
be tried on this basis. This new move will be discussed thoroughly in the
Governing Council."
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- Another council member, Mahmoud Othman, said the United
States had no right to make such a decision.
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- "The Iraqi people want Saddam to be tried for his
crimes in accordance with the Iraqi law," Othman said. "Iraqis
want to know the parties which helped Saddam to commit those crimes and
to possess weapons of mass destruction."
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- Iraq's justice minister, Hashim Abdul-Rahman, called
the Pentagon comments "mere views" and insisted that Iraqis themselves
would determine Saddam's fate.
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- "The only thing I do know is that Iraqi bodies will
decide Saddam's status," Abdul-Rahman said. "We will determine
his legal statues when the Iraqi authorities take over this issue."
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- Copyright © 2004 Canadian Press
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