Saddam will face only 12 charges at trial

Woodmonkey · 06-06-2005, 14:55

What do you think about limiting the charges against Saddam? Is this a more realistic approach? Does it deny all the victims and their families justice? Did they get the right charges?

Quote:

Official: 'Waste of time' to try ousted leader on all possible charges

Quote:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Former dictator Saddam Hussein will stand trial for a range of charges — from gassing thousands of Kurds to executing political and religious leaders, according to a list of the cases against him obtained from the special tribunal Monday.

Saddam could face up to 500 charges at the tribunal, but he will be tried on only 12 well documented counts because prosecuting him on all would be a “waste of time,” the prime minister’s spokesman said Sunday.
Laith Kuba also said Saddam was likely to be tried within the next two months on a range of charges, including alleged crimes committed in Iraqi Kurdistan.

“There should be no objection that a trial should take place within that time,” Kuba said during a press conference. “It is the government’s view that the trial of Saddam should take place as soon as possible.”

Focus high-profile cases
A list obtained by The Associated Press early Monday from the special tribunal, which will hear the case against Saddam and 11 of his henchmen, showed that prosecutors seem to be concentrating on 14 cases concerning his alleged crimes. Many received international attention during Saddam’s three decades in power.

The list contained few details, but among the crimes the tribunal says
Saddam committed were:
Executing at least 50 Iraqis in 1982 in the Shiite town of Dujail, 50 miles north of Baghdad, in retaliation for a failed assassination attempt against Saddam. Killing and deporting 8,000 members of the powerful Kurdish Barzani tribe, of which the current Kurdistan Democratic Party leader, Massoud Barzani, belongs. The 1988 chemical weapons attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja that killed an estimated 5,000 people. Executing prominent religious and political figures. Ordering the seven-month occupation of Kuwait that was ended by the 1991 U.S.-led Gulf War. The 1991 suppression of a Shiite uprising in southern Iraq.

Iraqi authorities believe the trial against Saddam will have a major effect on curbing the violent insurgency, which has killed at least 844 people since the new Shiite Muslim-led government was announced April 28, according to an Associated Press count.

No date has been set for the trial of Saddam, who has been held in a U.S.-run detention facility in Baghdad since being captured in December 2003.
He was arraigned July 1 in Baghdad on broad charges including killing rival politicians over 30 years, gassing Kurds in the northern town of Halabja in 1988, invading Kuwait in 1990 and suppressing the Kurdish and Shiite uprising.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8103488/

Snowden · 06-06-2005, 17:40

Maybe I'm naive, but I couldn't care less how many charges they bring against Saddam - so long as they remove him permanently to a place where he can never be again made the ruler of anything or anybody. The man has obviously earned the right to hang or face a firing squad - whatever means of execution Iraq's new government deems proper.

It only takes one case of murder for that; you can only kill a man once. After that, he is in the hands of God. A second death is then possible, but even that will have to be the limit.

MACTANK · 06-06-2005, 18:09

Considering the number of charges punishable by death that he is up for........

You can only execute hime once!

Woodmonkey · 06-06-2005, 18:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by MACTANK

You can only execute hime once!

Once is enough!

JohnRN · 06-10-2005, 13:14

I'd rather hang him.

A firing squad is a soldier's death and this man was no soldier.

Woodmonkey · 06-10-2005, 13:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by John.

I'd rather hang him.

A firing squad is a soldier's death and this man was no soldier.

Excellent point, John.

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