Iraqis take steps toward trial for Saddam

Saddam's trial is not likely to begin before 2005.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The Iraqis took legal custody of Saddam Hussein and 11 of his top lieutenants today, a first step toward the ousted dictator's expected trial for crimes against humanity.
In a one-line announcement, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's office said the Iraqi government assumed legal -- but not physical -- control "today, 30th June, at 10:15 in the morning."
They are to appear in court Thursday for a reading of the charges.
Salem Chalabi, the director of the Special Tribunal that will conduct the trials, said he met Saddam "earlier today to explain his rights and what will happen."
"The first step has happened," Chalabi told The Associated Press.
Defendants given rights
The defendants were informed individually of their rights, said an international official who spoke on condition of anonymity. An Iraqi judge witnessed the proceedings.
Saddam will remain in a U.S.-controlled jail guarded by Americans until the Iraqis are ready to take physical custody of him. That is expected to take a long time.
However, the legal transfer means that Saddam and the others are no longer prisoners of war -- subject to rights under the Geneva Conventions -- but criminal defendants whose treatment will be in accordance with Iraqi law. The change in status gives them the right to attorneys.
Chalabi said earlier that the trials of Saddam and other senior figures likely would not begin before 2005.
L. Paul Bremer, the former U.S. administrator, said he was confident that the Iraqis would handle the trials well.
'A wonderful day'
Saddam "will get the kind of justice he denied his own people," Bremer told ABC's "Good Morning America." "It's a wonderful day for the Iraqis to get him under their direct control. It will be a major event."
The crimes against humanity for which Saddam is expected to be tried include the 1988 chemical weapons massacre of Kurds in Halabja, the slaughter of Shiites during a 1991 uprising in southern Iraq, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Chalabi said Saddam's appearance Thursday at the tribunal, in a courthouse with a prominent clock tower inside Baghdad's sealed-off Green Zone, is expected to be videotaped for public release.
The images would be the first of Saddam the public will have seen since his Dec. 13 capture by U.S. soldiers, when a clip showed the bushy-bearded ex-leader opening his mouth for a dental examination.
To also appear
The Saddam lieutenants who will also appear include Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali"; former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan; former deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz; and two of Saddam's half brothers.
Already there are pretrial negotiations over permitting Saddam's foreign legal team to work in Iraq, whether to televise the proceedings, and whether to reinstate the death penalty, which Bremer suspended.
Mouwafak al-Rubaie, Iraq's new national security adviser, said the trial would be broadcast live on television and radio and that the tribunal would be able to impose the death penalty.
He said Saddam would not be allowed to turn the trial into a political game, by calling witnesses such as President Bush or British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"Saddam Hussein will be under the legal control of Iraqi law," he told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. "He is going to be tried according to the Iraqi criminal code."
Many distractions
Preparations for the trial come at an extremely difficult time. U.S. administrators turned over power to a sovereign Iraqi government only Monday. Allawi's government faces a relentless insurgency, and 160,000 U.S.-led foreign troops will remain.
Iraqi officials insist Saddam and the others will get fair trials. Hamid al-Bayati, Iraq's new deputy foreign minister and a leader of the main Shiite Muslim party, said there was "no chance at all" that Saddam might walk out a free man, perhaps on a legal technicality.
"The whole world will see this," said al-Bayati, who said he was tortured in Saddam's prisons in the 1970s. "He won't be able to walk free."
He noted that Saddam's victims are estimated in the hundreds of thousands or more, which means a huge segment of the 26 million Iraqis want to watch him answer for those crimes.