Iraqi president backs 'swift' trial of Saddam
A swift trial of Saddam Hussein and former officials of his regime could help in reducing attacks by insurgents, Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani said today.
Talabani’s comments came two days after the Iraqi Special Tribunal filed its first criminal case against Saddam Hussein.
It said the investigation into the July 8, 1982, massacre of an estimated 150 Shiites in Dujail, 50 miles north of Baghdad, has been completed and the case had been referred to the courts for trial.
Saddam and three other top officials are accused of involvement in the massacre as retaliation for a failed assassination attempt as he drove through Dujail.
“We are for a swift trial of those criminals. They are war criminals who committed terrible crimes against the Iraqi people,” Talabani told reporters in his first comments on the trial.
“Hurrying in their trial will help in reducing terrorism,” he said without elaborating.
A trial date is expected to be announced within days, but according to Iraqi law it cannot start before 45 days from the day the case was filed.
The tribunal will also try the former dictator on war crimes charges stemming from up to 14 incidents.
Those incidents include the 1987-88 campaign to drive Iraqi Kurds from wide areas of the north and the 1991 suppression of a Shiite revolt in the south after US-led forces removed Iraqi invaders from Kuwait.
Earlier today, Iraq’s neighbours also called for an acceleration of the process of bringing former leader Saddam Hussein and other leaders of his regime to justice.
The call came in a communique released at the end of a meeting in Turkey of the interior ministers of Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan.
The communique also expressed the neighbours’ determination to increase cooperation in border security, a key issue among countries that fear instability in Iraq could spread to the wider region.
Iraq is also demanding cooperation to stop insurgents from sending money and recruits from neighbouring countries to Iraq.
The communique “stressed the need for taking appropriate measures to prevent terror groups using the territory of states as bases for presence, recruiting, training, financing, planning, inciting or launching of terrorist operations.”
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