SADDAM HUSSEIN Legal custody will go to Iraqis

The deadline for the execution of a South Korean hostage has been extended.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The United States will hand legal custody of Saddam Hussein and an undetermined number of former regime figures to the interim Iraqi government as soon as Iraqi courts issue warrants for their arrest and request the transfer, a U.S. official said today.
However, the United States will retain physical custody of Saddam and the prisoners, while giving Iraqi prosecutors and defense lawyers access to them, the official said on condition of anonymity.
The Americans will continue to keep Saddam and others locked up and under U.S. guard because the Iraqi government does not yet have capacity to hold such prisoners, the official said.
"Before we turn over any of the detainees, we have to make sure there is valid Iraqi court order that authorizes the government to detain those individuals," the official said. "Once the security detainees are turned over to the Iraqi government, they become criminal detainees subject to criminal due process protections."
Saddam will be in the initial group of prisoners turned over, he said. The military will not say where Saddam and other key officials of his former regime are in custody.
Last week, Salem Chalabi, the official in charge of setting up a war crimes tribunal, said he expected the Iraqis to issue the necessary warrants before the transfer of sovereignty June 30.
South Korean's deadline
Meanwhile, kidnappers of a South Korean businessman extended their deadline for his execution, an intermediary said today, and the Seoul government said it would evacuate all its citizens working for businesses in Iraq by early July.
Kim Sun-il is alive and his abductors had agreed to extend the deadline for his execution, said Ahmed al-Ghreiri, an employee of the NKTS security firm, which is acting as an intermediary.
"This is humanitarian issue, and we are working on it and we expect good news," al-Ghreiri told The Associated Press.
Deadly explosion
An explosion rocked a Baghdad residential neighborhood today, killing two and wounding two others, witnesses said.
U.S. troops sealed off the area after the late afternoon explosion, and neither American nor Iraqi security forces were in the area at the time of the blast, witnesses said. Three cars were burned and four shops were slightly damaged in the Amiriya neighborhood.
A mortar attack Monday in Baghdad and two assaults on U.S. forces northeast of the capital killed one soldier and wounded nine others, the military said, as militants showed no sign of easing their attacks ahead of next week's transfer of sovereignty.
Iraqi insurgents also gunned down four U.S. Marines on Monday west of Baghdad, apparently stripping the dead of their flak jackets before fleeing.
A videotape delivered to Associated Press Television News showed the bodies lying in what appeared to be a walled compound. They were in uniform and one was slumped in the corner of a wall.
Suspected Al-Qaida-linked captors had threatened to kill the 33-year-old Kim if the South Korean government did not cancel its planned deployment of 3,000 troops to Iraq by early today.
The Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV network also said the deadline had been extended, but it provided no details or source for the report.
The South Korean government said today it will evacuate the last of its 22 nationals in Iraq by early next month. Most work for South Korean companies that supply the U.S. military, said Commerce, Industry and Energy Minister Lee Hee-beom.
Kim, who works for a trading company in Baghdad, was believed to have been kidnapped about 10 days ago. A videotape broadcast by the Arab television station Al-Jazeera showed him pleading for his life.
The kidnappers claimed to be from the Monotheism and Jihad group led by Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is believed to have ties to Al-Qaida.
The recent kidnappings and attacks appear aimed at undermining the interim Iraqi government set to take power June 30, when the U.S.-led occupation formally ends. U.S. and Iraqi officials have vowed to go ahead with the transfer.
Coalition spokesman Dan Senor said that by week's end, all Iraqi government ministries would be under full Iraqi control.
Mortars fall
The mortar attack Monday in north-central Baghdad killed a U.S. soldier and wounded six other soldiers, the military said. A contract worker was also wounded. Also Monday, insurgents killed four U.S. Marines west of Baghdad, apparently stripping the dead of their flak jackets before fleeing.
Iran said today it plans to prosecute eight British navy sailors serving in Iraq on charges of entering Iranian waters, Iran's state-run television said today.
The eight were detained in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway Monday as they were delivering a patrol boat for the new Iraqi Riverine Patrol Service. The waterway runs along the border between Iran and Iraq.
U.S. authorities released three busloads of prisoners today from the notorious Abu Ghraib detention center, bringing the total number set free in the past two months to more than 2,000. The prison is at the center of a scandal over abuse of inmates by U.S. troops.
A military judge today refused to dismiss charges against Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II, one of seven American soldiers accused in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Frederick had asked for a new Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury session.
Accepting Frederick's motion would have been tantamount to dismissing the original charges.
Frederick, of Buckingham, Va., was among three defendants who appeared in court Monday for pretrial hearings, in which the military judge, Col. James Pohl, agreed to let defense attorneys question top U.S. generals in the case.
Pohl also declared the prison a crime scene which must not be destroyed as President Bush had offered.
Pohl rescheduled the hearing for Frederick until next month because his civilian lawyer, Gary Myers, did not show up. But later, Frederick decided he wanted the hearing to be held today as was his right.
Hearing for woman
The U.S. Army also scheduled the military equivalent of a grand jury hearing for Spc. Sabrina Harman, the U.S. command said today. The session, known as an Article 32 hearing, will determine if she will face court-martial. The session will be held Thursday, a military spokeswoman, Lt. Beatriz Yarrish, said.
Harman, of Lorton, Va., is a member of the 372nd Military Police Company, a reserve unit from Maryland. She was seen in photographs smiling over a pile of naked prisoners.
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