  |  | | Dujail Judgment (English translation)
Case School of Law | | | Dujail: Trial and Error
Briefing paper, International Center for Transitional Justice, November 7, 2006 (pdf) | | | Iraq: Dujail Trial Marred by Serious Flaws
Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper | | | Judging Dujail - The First Trial before the Iraqi High Tribunal
Human Rights Watch report, November 2006 | | | The Anfal Trial: Q-and-A
Human Rights Watch | | | The Trial of Saddam Hussein: Q-and-A
Human Rights Watch | | | Transcript: Saddam Hussein Court Hearing
Thursday, July 1, 2004; 12:10 PM
At a court hearing in Baghdad, Iraq's former president Saddam Hussein responds to war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity accusations. | | | Elements of Crime of the IST | | | Revised Statute of the IST
English translation of the official gazette of the Republic of Iraq; October 18, 2005 (pdf) | | | The Former Iraqi Government on Trial
Human Rights Watch, October 17, 2005 |
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| |  | | Saddam Hussein al-Majid al-Tikriti | | | context : | Iraq  | | judgement place : | Iraqi Special Court | | status : | Sentenced | | particulars : | First trial before the Iraqi High Tribunal (Dujail): sentenced to death by hanging on 5 November 2006; sentence confirmed on appeal on 26 December 2006; executed by hanging on 30 December 2006
Indicted in a second trial before the Iraqi High Tribunal (Anfal), executed before the end of the trial | | position : | President of Irak |
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| | | | On June 30, 2004, Saddam Hussein (held in custody by U.S. forces at Camp Cropper in Baghdad), along with 11 senior Ba'athist officials, were handed over legally (though not physically, as there is at present no adequate Iraqi prison to hold them) to the interim Iraqi government and was arraigned on the 1st of July 2004.
The first legal hearing in Saddam Hussein's case was held before the Iraqi Special Tribunal on July 1, 2004. Saddam Hussein rejected charges against him. Although no attorneys for Saddam Hussein were present at the July 1 hearing, his first wife, Sajida Talfah, has hired a multinational legal team of over 20 attorneys.
Saddam Hussein faces seven preliminary charges:
- The 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
- The suppression of Kurdish and Shiite uprisings in 1991.
- The ethnic cleansing campaign against Kurds from 1987 to 1988.
- The gassing of Kurdish villagers in Halabjah in 1988.
- The killing of political activists over a 30-year period.
- The killing of religious figures in 1974
- The killing of thousands of the Kurdish Barzani clan in 1983.
The Iraqi government announced in late June that the former dictator would answer 12 charges of crimes against humanity, although there are more than 500 confirmed cases against him.
The first trial started on 19 October 2005.
Saddam Hussein will at a first stage stand trial for what is called the Dujail massacre. He is charged simultaneously with seven other former high officials (Taha Yassin Ramadan, Barzan Ibrahim Al-Tikriti, Awad Hamed Al-Bander, Abdullah Kadhem Ruaid, Ali Daeem Ali, Mohammed Azawi Ali, Mizher Abdullah Rawed, cf. "related cases") who are said to have ordered and overseen the killing, in July 1982, of more than 140 Shi'ite men from Dujail, a village 35 miles north of Baghdad. In this respect, they are charged for crimes against humanity.
The men were allegedly killed in retribution after an attack on the presidential motorcade as it passed through the village. It is alleged that apart from the killings, hundreds of women and children from the town were jailed for years in internment camps in the desert, and that the date palm groves that sustained the local economy and were the families' livelihood were destroyed.
At the first Court session, Saddam Hussein pleaded not guilty to all charges. His seven co-defendants then equally pleaded not guilty.
Following a request by the defense for more time to prepare, the trial has been adjourned until 28 November 2005.
In the weeks following the first audience, serious security concerns for the defense team of Hussein and the other accused became apparent. 36 hours after the first hearing, a group of unidentified armed men dragged one of the attorneys from his office in east Baghdad and shot him dead. A few days later, the second lawyer was killed in a drive-by shooting, and a third, injured in that attack, subsequently fled Iraq for sanctuary in Qatar.
As a consequence, calls for the trial to be held abroad were heard. The defense lawyers imposed a boycott on the trial, until their security concerns were met with specific measures.
A few days before the trial was to resume, the defense team announced that it had accepted offers of protection from Iraqi and American officials and would appear in Court on 28 November. The agreement is said to include the same level of protection that is offered to the Iraqi judges and Prosecutors, with measures such as armored cars and teams of bodyguards.
After a short Court session on 28 November, during which some testimony regarding the killings in Dujail was presented, Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin ordered a one-week adjournment until Dec. 5, to grant the defence teams time to find new counsel after one of their lawyers was killed and another fled Iraq.
The trial was continued. On June 19, 2006, the Prosecutor asked the court, in his closing arguments, that the death penalty be imposed upon Saddam Hussein, Barzan al-Tikriti and Taha Yassine Ramadan.
The closing speech of the defence was held on July 26, 2006, by a court-appointed lawyer assigned to present the defense after Saddam Hussein's attorneys boycotted the trial.
On 5 November 2006, Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging. A death sentence or life imprisonment generates an automatic appeal.
On 3 December 2006, the defence team lodged an appeal against the verdicts for Saddam Hussein, Awad Hamed Al-Bander and Barzan Ibrahim Al-Tikriti, who had been sentenced to death.
On 26 December 2006, the appeals Chamber confirmed the death sentence against Saddam Hussein.
Three days later, on 30 December 2006, Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging.
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The second trial against Saddam Hussein before the Iraqi High Tribunal, the Anfal trial (start of trial: August 21, 2006), concerned the campaign against the Kurds in the 1980s. The Anfal was a military campaign that resulted in the deliberate murder of at least 50,000 and possibly 100,000 Kurds in 1988.
In the Anfal trial, Saddam Hussein was charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
His co-defendants (see "related cases") were either charged with with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes (Ali Hassan al-Majid ), or war crimes and crimes against humanity (Hashem Ahmed, Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti, Farhan Mutlak al-Jubouri, Sabir Abdul-Aziz al-Duri). Tahir Tawfiq al-Ani was only charge with crimes against humanity.
The trial began on August 21, 2006
The presiding judge was replaced on 20 September 2006, after he had been accused of bias towards Saddam Hussein. The defence team strictly objected to what they consider an undue intereference by the government in the trial.
After Saddam Hussein's execution, the trial continued without him and the Tribunal rendered its verdict on 24 June 2007. | |    | | Trial Watch would like to remind its users that any person charged by national or international authorities is presumed innocent until proven guilty. | |  |  | | nationality : | | | Iraq | | | date of birth : | | | 28.04.1937 | | | last time seen : | | | Bagdad (Iraq) | | | period of charges : | | | 16.07.1979 - 13.12.2003 | | | judgement period : | | | 19.10.2005 | | | charges : | | | Crimes against humanity
Genocide
War crimes | | | profile last modified : | | | 24.06.2007 |
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