Saddam to be handed over to Iraq govt today: Charges to be framed tomorrow
BAGHDAD, June 29: Saddam Hussein will be handed over to Iraqi justice on Wednesday, two days after the country regained its sovereignty from the United States, but he will remain under US guard to ensure he doesn't escape.
Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on Tuesday that Saddam and up to 11 top members of his regime would appear before Iraqi judges to be charged on Thursday, a day after the legal transfer, although the trial would take months.
Saddam will be charged with crimes against humanity for the 1988 massacre of Kurds in Halabja, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, said Salem Chalabi, a lawyer leading the work of the special tribunal that will try the former Iraqi leader.
Allawi's new government is under pressure to demonstrate to ordinary Iraqis that a break from the past has been made, while also showing it is tough on the violence blighting the country.
There was no let-up in that violence on Tuesday. Three US Marines were killed in a roadside bomb blast in Baghdad, raising to at least 632 the number of US soldiers killed in action since the start of the war last year.
Mr Allawi told a news conference: "This government has formally requested the transfer of the most notorious and high-profile detainees. These people... will face justice before the special Iraqi court created in January to try members of the former regime for crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes."
Saddam, accused by Iraqis of ordering the killing and torture of thousands of their compatriots during 35 years of Baathist rule, has been held as a prisoner of war since US forces found him hiding in a hole near Tikrit in December.
Mr Allawi said the US-led multinational force would keep physical custody of Saddam and the other 11 until Iraq's nascent police force was capable of detaining them securely.
TURKS FREED: Three Turkish hostages walked free after their release by a group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a suspected Al Qaeda ally. His group had previously threatened to behead the Turks on Tuesday unless their government told companies to stop dealing with US forces in Iraq.
Ankara had rejected the demand. "Jama'at al-Tawhid and Jihad announces the release of the Turkish hostages for the sake of Muslims in Turkey and their demonstrations against (US President George W.) Bush," a masked man said on a video tape aired by Arabic Al Jazeera TV.
DIPLOMATIC TIES: A day after Iraq regained its sovereignty, ambassadors from three nations in the US-led coalition - the US, Australia and Denmark - presented their credentials to the new government, formally resuming diplomatic ties.
John Negroponte, the new US ambassador, who was previously Washington's envoy to the United Nations, said he looked forward to working with the sovereign Iraqi government.
The hand over of power helped drive world oil prices to their lowest level in more than two months. As part of a policy introduced after the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal, the US military freed dozens more prisoners from the Baghdad jail and another facility at Umm Qasr in the south. -Reuters
