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Saddam confident of clearing his name when he faces trial judges
Saddam Hussein is looking forward to his forthcoming trial and believes that he will be acquitted of all the charges laid against him, according to Iraqi officials. The deposed dictator, who has been held in solitary confinement at an American-controlled prison in Iraq since his capture in December 2003, is in good shape "mentally and physically" and is relishing the opportunity to clear his name.
"He still insists that he is the legitimate ruler of Iraq and that a foreign army came and deposed him," said Hoshiyar Zebari, Iraq's foreign minister. "He does not seem to realise that he lost the war and that since then we have had new elections and new leaders. Saddam's frame of mind is that he will get off." According to Mr Zebari, Saddam intends to conduct his defence on the basis that he is still the legitimate ruler of Iraq, based on the referendum he held shortly before the war in which he claimed to have won 100 per cent of the vote. "He claims everyone voted for him, but I am an Iraqi, and he did not get my vote," said Mr Zebari. But while Saddam is confident about his prospects, other leading members of his regime are in low spirits. "People like Tariq Aziz and Chemical Ali [Ali Hassan al -Majid] are broken men. They know there is no escape from justice." The Iraqi government has announced that Saddam's trial by a special tribunal will start on October 19 in Baghdad, where he will face charges relating to the massacre of 146 Shias in the village of Dujail in 1982. If convicted he faces execution by hanging. British officials last week expressed doubts that the trial would begin on time as the Iraqis had still not completed work on the courtroom. No agreement had been reached on basic requirements, such as whether the glass around the dock should be bullet-proof. Saddam's legal team has also claimed that it does not have enough funds to provide an adequate defence, and had been denied proper access its client. But Mr Zebari insisted that the trial would start on time. "This trial is long, long overdue," he said. "Saddam and his accomplices should have been dealt with long ago. "So long as they are still in jail, their old Ba'athist colleagues think there is still a chance that they might one day come back. We need to show that the age of Saddam is finally at an end." |
