BAGHDAD, June 27: The trial of former Iraqi leader ` Hussein on charges including genocide for a brutal campaign against Kurds in the 1980s that left 100,000 people dead was set on Tuesday for August 21.
“After the transfer of the investigation results of the Al-Anfal crimes to the criminal court... the tribunal decided on Monday August 21, 2006 as a trial date,” the Iraqi High Tribunal said in a statement.
The court had announced in April that Saddam and six co-defendants including Ali Hassan Al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali, would face genocide charges over the Anfal campaign against Iraq’s Kurds.
Saddam and seven co-defendants are currently on trial for allegedly executing 148 inhabitants of the Shia village of Dujail following an assassination attempt there against Saddam in 1982.
They face execution by hanging if convicted in the Dujail case, which is set to resume on July 10.
A US official has said a verdict could be issued by mid-September.
But Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, has said that Saddam would be tried for all his crimes before any of the verdicts are implemented.
Aside from Saddam, other defendants in the August trial include the so-called Chemical Ali, notorious for ordering the gassing of Halabja in 1988 which killed 5,000 people.
However, because the Halabja attack was not part of the eight official Anfal campaigns, it will not be included in the trial.
Central to the August trial will be Majid and accusations he made liberal use of poisonous gas, mass executions and prison camps to subdue the north from 1987 to 1989, when there were major attacks on the Kurds.—AFP
