Victor's Justice: Saddam is Executed

Hussein Trial Farcical, Unjust, Kafkaesque, Unbelievable

Justin Morahan notes the following points in his article on the trial of Saddam Hussein:

• Four defence lawyers were assassinated during the trial (two by alleged US/Iraqi collaboration)
• Four of the 5 original judges have either resigned or been killed
• The US spent hundreds of millions of dollars in support of the prosecution
• No confidential visits were allowed by defence lawyers to their clients and none at all until after the start of the first trial
• The Defence team was allowed only minutes to begin presenting its defence after the charges were made known on May 15th 2006
• Defence had to end its case within weeks but the Prosecution were allowed months
• Evidence was withheld from defence counsel.
• Defence lawyers were denied access to investigative hearings, denied prior notice of witnesses and denied permission to visit the scene of the alleged crime.
• Trial sessions were announced oftentimes without advance notice or consultation with the result that even the most experienced lawyers missed the hearings.
• Four of the five judges who started in the case were removed by publicly acknowledged US interference
• During the trial, George Bush declared that Saddam Hussein "will be" executed
• Transcripts of the proceedings were refused to defence lawyers.

and more....

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The sentence of death on Saddam Hussein in Iraq has been imposed by an illegal court, packed with biased prosecutors and judges who needed United States authorisation before they were ratified, according to a report by Ramsey Clark and Curtis F.J. Doebbler. The authors describe the trial as an attempt to impose victors' injustice on the Iraqi people. The war against Iraq was illegal and "To initiate a war of aggression ... is the supreme international crime" - (Nuremberg Tribunal)
"Rather than being brought to justice for their crimes, the Bush Administration and their allies have resorted to trying their victims. " Behind every door ... there are Americans pulling the strings.

The conduct of the trial, its setting up and aura were dark and surreal. For example:

• Four defence lawyers were assassinated during the trial (two by alleged US/Iraqi collaboration)
• Four of the 5 original judges have either resigned or been killed
• The US spent hundreds of millions of dollars in support of the prosecution
• No confidential visits were allowed by defence lawyers to their clients and none at all until after the start of the first trial
• The Defence team was allowed only minutes to begin presenting its defence after the charges were made known on May 15th 2006
• Defence had to end its case within weeks but the Prosecution were allowed months
• Evidence was withheld from defence counsel.
• Defence lawyers were denied access to investigative hearings, denied prior notice of witnesses and denied permission to visit the scene of the alleged crime.
• Trial sessions were announced oftentimes without advance notice or consultation with the result that even the most experienced lawyers missed the hearings.
• Four of the five judges who started in the case were removed by publicly acknowledged US interference
• During the trial, George Bush declared that Saddam Hussein "will be" executed
• Transcripts of the proceedings were refused to defence lawyers.

In Sept 2005 four prominent statesmen wrote to the Secretary General of the United Nations advising him of the threat to participants in the trial. The warnings were ignored and "several weeks later, two defence lawyers were murdered in a manner evidencing the involvement of the US authorities and the Iraqi authorities who are cooperating with them".

In May 2006 a defence witness was killed after his whereabouts were disclosed to the US authorities

Two of the Judges had publicly condemned Saddam Hussein before the trial began and were not impartial

Unlike the Irish system, in Iraq, the Judge is the evaluator of both law and fact

On 12 June 2006, a judge read out in court a series of allegations about the defence lawyers to the effect that they had bribed their own witnesses. The allegations were purportedly made by the defence witnesses who had in the meantime been beaten, arrested and denied access to Counsel of their own choosing by the Iraqi Government with the cooperation of the US authorities. The defence lawyers were threatened with arrest if they challenged the court's actions.

This abuse of law, says the report, is contributing to the increased violence in Iraq. http://www.justiceonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=IST

Now, from an Irish perspective, (not dealt with in the report), this illegal court was set up as the result of the illegal war of aggression against Iraq. Ireland helped George W Bush in that illegal war by allowing US military planes to re-fuel at Shannon airport and later by allowing known US torture planes to land at the same airport without inspection. The present FF/PD Government is therefore complicit in what passes for "justice" in the special court set up illegally to try Saddam Hussein and also must bear some responsibility for the continuing violence in Iraq

When I reject utterly the atrocities carried out by this man in his lifetime, the fact remains that he has been sentenced to hang by an illegal court. Those who have been directly responsible for other atrocities such as the the deaths of 150,000 Iraqis, notably George W Bush and Anthony Blair, have not stood trial for crimes against humanity. Nor have the leaders of the Coalition of the Willing. Nor have the leaders of countries such as Ireland who have given full support to Mr Bush and Mr Blair in their bloody, reckless, cowardly adventure.