BAGHDAD, May 31: Saddam Hussein could be on trial within two months, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Tuesday, but a London lawyer representing the former Iraqi president warned several legal steps must be taken first. Talabani was asked during a videolink press conference on CNN when Saddam’s much-awaited trial might begin, and replied: “I hope within two months.”

“The Iraqi government is now doing its best to prepare the ground for a court which will be able to decide ... about Saddam Hussein’s future,” he told the channel’s World Report Conference. But his comments drew a quick rebuttal from Giovanni di Stefano, a London-based member of Saddam’s legal team, who told the Press Association: “Before any trial can occur there has to be an indictment and a charge.”

Stefano is part of a 24-member international legal team hired by Saddam’s wife Sajida and their three daughters. “No matter how hopeful the Iraqi president is, there can be no substance to this until the man is properly charged,” the lawyer argued.

Saddam has been held at a high-security prison on a US base outside Baghdad since his arrest in December 2003. He appeared before an Iraqi judge in July last year during a preliminary hearing at which he was accused of using chemical weapons against Kurds in Halabja in 1988.—AFP