Iraq president urges moving troubled Saddam court

Jalal Talabani

BAGHDAD - Iraq's president stepped into the debate over the future of the troubled court trying Saddam Hussein today, suggesting it be moved from Baghdad to his own Kurdish home region to improve security.

Jalal Talabani's proposal came as a split emerged inside the court over how to choose a successor to Kurdish judge Rizgar Amin; he resigned in protest at political pressure, buffeting a trial already rocked by the killings of two defence lawyers.

"If there are judges here who will feel in danger in future, we are ready to take them to Kurdistan and they would be safe there and guarded very well," Talabani said in Baghdad.

Moving the US-sponsored tribunal from the violent but politically neutral setting of Baghdad to the relative safety of Kurdistan seems unlikely; Kurds, who see themselves as victims of Saddam, are deeply hostile to the former leader and that could damage efforts to demonstrate the court's fairness.

Some rights groups have urged the government to hold a trial abroad in an international court. They question Iraq's ability to stage a fair trial amid sectarian and ethnic conflict.

Disputes over finding a permanent successor if chief judge Amin continues to resist efforts to get him to withdraw his resignation could further dent the image of the court.

The administration of the Iraqi High Tribunal, effectively the five-member appeals chamber meeting as the executive arm of the court, wants Sayeed al-Hamashi, the senior of Amin's four colleagues on the trial panel judging Saddam, to be appointed as his permanent replacement, a tribunal source told Reuters.

RULES DISPUTE

Hamashi had already been chosen on Monday temporarily to preside over the trial when it resumes on January 24 -- in line with rules designed to cope with brief illnesses or other absences. Talks are still going on to persuade Amin, who lives in Talabani's power base of Sulaimaniya, to return to Baghdad.

But the source said: "The administration is now insisting on appointing Hamashi permanently."

Some judges, however, were complaining the administration had no right to appoint Hamashi and that the statutes governing the tribunal make clear a new chief judge must be elected by all the other judges, not appointed.

Fourteen of the 15 judges who make up the tribunal's three trial chambers held talks for several hours at their offices on Tuesday, the source said. Amin did not attend the talks.

"There is a serious controversy going on in the tribunal. They are discussing the legality of appointing Hamashi permanently," the source said. "Some are unhappy because this step is contradictory to the law of the tribunal, which spells out that an alternate judge should be elected, not appointed."

He could not say how many of the 14 judges were raising objections but said they would meet again on Wednesday, when a statement could be issued.

Hamashi is the only other judge to have been seen alongside Amin in television coverage of the trial.

He said he would not be intimidated by Saddam, telling Asharq al-Awsat newspaper on Monday: "I do not care that the person in front of me is a former president or Saddam Hussein."

A source close to Amin told Reuters after his resignation: "He had complaints from the government that he was being too soft in dealing with Saddam. They want things to go faster."

Saddam and seven others are charged with crimes against humanity for the killings of more than 140 Shi'ite men after an assassination bid in the town of Dujail in 1982. Other trials, including for genocide against the Kurds, are likely to follow.

- REUTERS