Posted on 06/12/2005 7:07:02 PM PDT by mazack
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein should be tried in another country, preferably Sweden, rather than Iraq, one of his defense lawyers said on Sunday.
"We invite the Iraqi government and the prosecutors to hold this trial, if there is to be a trial, not in Iraq where it's not safe to hold the trial, but to hold it either in the Hague or in Sweden or in Austria or even in Switzerland," British-based lawyer Giovanni di Stefano said.
"I would favor Sweden more than any other country -- where we are likely, more than not, a) to obtain a fair trial, and b) in the unlikely event that our client is tried and convicted, he can go straight to a detention center in Sweden," he told the Swedish public television station SVT.
An Iraqi Special Tribunal, set up in late 2003 to try senior members of the former regime, said last week that no date had yet been set for the trial of Saddam, who was taken into custody in December 2003.
Di Stefano, part of a defense team of over 20 hired by Saddam's family to defend him against charges likely to include the killing of thousands of Iraqis, criticized the process.
"To date we have not even one piece of paper, one document, one charge, one indictment, one allegation. We have speculation," he said.
Under Iraqi law, Saddam can be sentenced to death if convicted. But di Stefano said the defense team had received assurances that the former dictator would not be executed.
"The Americans and the British and the Italians will not allow that. They will not allow the death penalty to be imposed," he said.
"And the president of Iraq has confirmed to us he will be signing no warrant of execution as would be required under Iraqi law. He has made his position clear."
Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson has said Saddam, 68, could be allowed to serve a prison sentence in militarily non-aligned Sweden, which opposed the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam.
Former Serbian president Biljana Plavsic is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence in Sweden after being convicted as a war criminal.
I suggest Israel....
I'd like to see him have a trial in an inert state.
Boy SADDAMN is in trouble. It's Switzerland that is supposedly the neutral stae in EU. I guess he thinks the prisons in "Sweden' are better than the ones he built for the Iraqi people.
Saddam was always trying to be come a resident of Kuwait, so....
I suggest Israel....
naw,......Canada!
Virginia? Dean and Sanders get elected there right?
>>>"I'd like to see him have a trial in an inert state"<<<
Walk him twenty feet from where he is being held, convene a court of his peers and I believe he would assume "an inert state" during the "Swearing In" segment of his Trial.
After that parts of him will be on Parade in Celebration of Justice being served.
People love him in Iraq, they will fer sure acquit him. Let the games begin!
Wacko Jacko trial is dragging for tooooo long.
I am sure diStapohano would love to have the trial in Iran.
Damn, that's a good move by his part.
No one should think for a second that he's not getting good representation.
As long as he don't have a trail in the US, by the time the MSM, Amnesty International, ACLU and the liberals get through he will be freed and given reparations.
The nerve....!
If I recall correctly, the people will speak with their shoes.
How about Cambridge, Massachusetts? Or maybe Berkeley, California.
I'm for life - in a dunking booth that tours Iraq.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.