GENEVA, Dec 16: Saddam Hussein will be the last of 12 leaders from the toppled regime to go on trial "long after" next month's elections, Iraq's justice minister told a Swiss newspaper in an article published on Thursday.

In addition, Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, presidential adviser and also half-brother of Saddam, would be the second to face trial after Ali Hassan al-Majid, nicknamed "Chemical Ali", said the minister, Malek Dohan al-Hassan.

"The rest of the accused will follow one after the other," Hassan, a French speaker, told Le Temps daily. "Saddam himself would be judged the last, long after the elections in January," he said.

Away from the historic trials, the justice minister expressed concern about the elections, planned for Jan 30, due to the daily barrage of violence. "I was in favour of a postponement of the elections. I believe that we cannot vote calmly in such a climate of fear," he said.

"We will have elections under a banner of blood and that is not acceptable." The 83-year-old minister, however, noted that other parties had pushed for an accelerated timetable. He accused Washington of wanting the outcome of the polls to produce a strong opposition and a weak coalition government. "This would allow them to continue to pull the strings (of the people in power)," noted Hassan. --AFP