War crimes trials against the top figures in Saddam Hussein's ousted regime will begin next week, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Tuesday. He didn't say whether the former dictator would be among them. Many of Iraq's former Baath Party members have been in jail for more than a year, and few have been able to meet with counsel. Saddam's Jordan-based lawyers say they have not seen the former dictator, arrested a year ago Monday, and said holding trials so soon would be illegal. "The Iraqi court will be in violation of the basic rights of the defendants, which is to have access to legal counsel while being interrogated and indicted," Ziad al-Khasawneh said.
Officials had given conflicting accounts about when the trials before the Iraqi Special Tribunal would begin. They have also suggested that Saddam would not be tried first. "I can now tell you clearly and precisely that, God willing, next week the trials of the symbols of the former regime will start, one by one so that justice can take its path in Iraq," Allawi told the interim National Council, without saying who would be tried. |