Saddam is now in Iraqi legal custody

The Iraqis' getting physical custody of Saddam is expected to take a long time.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The United States turned Saddam Hussein and 11 of his deputies over to Iraqi legal custody today, an official said, the first step toward trying the former dictator on charges expected to include the massacre of Kurds in 1988 and the invasion of Kuwait two years later.
Saddam will remain in an American-controlled jail guarded by Americans until the Iraqis are ready to take physical custody of him. That is expected to take a long time, and a trial isn't likely for several months.
The defendants were informed individually of their rights, an international official said on condition of anonymity. An Iraqi judge witnessed the proceedings.
Legal transfer
There was no official confirmation from Iraqi authorities, though Prime Minister Iyad Allawi had said that the legal transfer of the 12 defendants would take place today. They are to appear in court Thursday for a formal reading of the charges.
"The first step has happened," Salem Chalabi, the director of the Iraqi Special Tribunal that will try Saddam, told The Associated Press. He refused to elaborate. "I met with him [Saddam] earlier today to explain his rights and what will happen," Chalabi said.
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.
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.
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 was suspended by American occupation chief L. Paul Bremer.
Mouwafak al-Rubaie, Iraq's new national security adviser, said today that the Iraqi Special 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 U.S. 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."
The process of preparing for Saddam's 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.
Fair trials
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.
But the trial could contribute to the upheaval in Iraq by polarizing Saddam's supporters and detractors, said Walid Mohammed al-Shibibi, a Baghdad attorney and editor of a legal journal.
"This will escalate into terrorist attacks," he said.
Chalabi said the trials of Saddam and other senior figures likely would not begin before 2005. Some suspects could be indicted in the autumn but "the senior ones will not be indicted for some time," he told CNN. "Then after that ... the trials would start maybe in a few months further down the line."
Chalabi said Thursday's appearance at the tribunal, in a courthouse with a prominent clock tower inside Baghdad's sealed-off Green Zone, is expected to be filmed for public release.
The images would be the first of Saddam the public will have seen since Saddam's Dec. 13 capture by U.S. soldiers, when a clip showed the bushy-bearded leader opening his mouth for a dental examination.
Upon their arraignment, the dozen U.S. military detainees will be given the status of Iraqi criminal suspects, which gives them the right to attorneys or appointed counsel, Chalabi said.