May 9, 2003	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 6, 1424

BAGHDAD, May 8: A special Iraqi tribunal could try Saddam Hussein and members of his former regime for crimes against his people, a top US law official said Thursday as Iraq’s legal system resumed work with the opening of two courts in Baghdad.

“There is a broad consensus that crimes against the Iraqi people be handled by Iraqi justice,” said the new senior US advisor to Iraq’s justice ministry, Clint Williamson.

“We think the Iraqis should have the lead on that,” Williamson said of the prosecution of the 55 top Iraqi officials on Washington’s most-wanted list, headed by Saddam.

Saddam, whose regime was toppled a month ago by a US-led military coalition, is still at large, and it is uncertain whether he is dead or alive. So far some 20 former officials have been captured by or surrendered to coalition forces.

“Prosecution involving crimes on a large scale will immobilise the system for years. So we need to set up some sort of special arrangements to deal with it,” said Williamson.

“It has to be clarified and the details have to be determined, but it will probably take place within the broad premises of the Iraqi justice.”

Williamson was talking after the resumption of legal proceedings in the criminal court in the northwestern Baghdad district of Al-Azamiya.—AFP