NEW YORK, Nov 20: The Human Rights Watch has termed the trial of Saddam Hussein and seven other defendants unsound. In a 97-page report released on Monday, it said procedural and substantive flaws had marred the proceedings of the Iraqi tribunal for crimes against humanity.

The New York-based watchdog group said the shortcomings of the trial, for the killings of over 100 people in the town of Dujail, also call into questions new subsequent proceedings at the tribunal.

"The proceedings in the Dujail trial were fundamentally unfair," said Nehal Bhuta of the International Justice Programme and author of the report. "The tribunal squandered an important opportunity to deliver credible justice to the people of Iraq. And its imposition of the death penalty after an unfair trial is indefensible."

The report, ‘Judging Dujail: the first trial before the Iraqi High Tribunal’, is based on 10 months of observation and dozens of interviews with judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers. Human Rights Watch, which has been calling for the prosecution of Saddam Hussein and his lieutenants for more than a decade, was one of only two international organisations that had a regular observer presence in the court.

The HRW noted the Iraqi tribunal was undermined from the outset by the Iraqi government’s actions that threatened the `independence and perceived impartiality’ of the court.