Global Policy Forum

Colin Freeman and Philip Sherwell

Iraqi officials and judges involved in setting up Baghdad's new war crimes court have revealed that Saddam Hussein's trial will not be finished for five years, despite the clamour for speedy justice since his arrest last week. The desire among many ordinary Iraqis for their former dictator to be tried rapidly must be sacrificed to the need for a full and open hearing that satisfies international legal standards, officials say. Mouwafak al-Rubaie, the member of Iraq's new governing council who is responsible for setting up the war crimes tribunal, said: "Five years is the best estimate of how long it may take, from where we are now to actually reaching a verdict. "It will obviously cause impatience among the Iraqi people, but I don't think that there is anything that can be done about that." Iraqi judges, who are drafting new laws of genocide and war crimes to be incorporated into the country's legal system, say that the volume and complexity of the cases against Saddam mean that it will take at least a year to formulate charges. Little preparatory work has been done because Saddam was not expected to be taken alive. Further delays will be caused by the fact that Iraq's legal system, badly undermined under his regime, is new to the intricacies of war crimes law. "Even if we stick to just a few main charges, it is still a lot to cope with," said one senior judge. "Kurds, Shias and other communities who suffered under Saddam want to have their cases aired properly in court. Many people will want to give evidence." Matters may be further delayed by international debate over whether Saddam should be tried in Iraq at all. Human rights groups believe that he should be handed over to an international criminal court, similar to the one in The Hague, while America and Britain are content for all culpable ex-regime leaders to be tried by Iraqis themselves. On Friday, John Negroponte, America's ambassador to the United Nations, insisted that no decision had yet been made. But after giving their blessing to Iraq's war crimes court two weeks ago, the coalition's leading partners would find it hard to make an exception for Saddam. Charges against the former leader are expected to be restricted to a handful of key events in Iraq's recent, bloody history - including atrocities ordered during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, the gassing and persecution of Kurds, the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the brutal suppression of the Shia and Kurdish rebellions in 1991. A five-year wait for a verdict would put Saddam's trial on a par with that of Slobodan Milosevic, the Serb leader on trial at The Hague, whose hearing began in February 2002, and has no immediate end in sight.

The coalition, however, hopes that the process can be speeded up. "Five years would be abnormally long," said one senior legal official. "We hope to get the trial under way by the end of next year, but it is impossible to say how long it will be before he finally leaves the dock." Saddam is expected to use the platform of a public trial to mount a strident political defence of his regime, and to remind an international audience that he once had allies in Western Europe, America and the old Soviet Union, particularly during Iraq's war with the Islamic regime of Iran. With his penchant for rambling rhetoric, his self-obsessed view of history and his determination to be remembered as a great Arab leader, the chance to justify himself to the world and embarrass former allies in the process would be too good to miss, say friends and foes alike. Badir Arief Izzat, a leading Baghdad lawyer who already represents several other former Ba'athist leaders and has volunteered to work on Saddam's case pro bono, said: "This tribunal will embarrass Bush the father and that will be bad for Bush the son. Saddam will talk and the whole world will be able to listen." Jacques Verges, the veteran French lawyer whose previous clients include the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, and who, the Telegraph revealed last week, is representing Tariq Aziz, Saddam's former trusted aide, has also offered his services to the former dictator's family. He hinted yesterday that Saddam's defence would highlight the international support he received while, for example, gassing Kurds at Halabja. During a visit to Amman to meet Mr Aziz's relations, he said "all Western heads of state" from that era should also go on trial if Saddam ended up in the dock.

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