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by Stephen
Lendman
As the dominant corporate media in the US made sure
everyone in the country would know just ahead of the
mid-term congressional elections here, Saddam Hussein
was convicted of crimes against humanity on November 5
for his involvement in the killing of 148 Shia men in
al-Dujail village after a failed assassination attempt
against him there in 1982. The Supreme Iraqi Criminal
(Hanging Court) Tribunal (SICT) sentenced him to death
by hanging, subject to appeal that's automatic and pro
forma. It won't save him from a very sore neck as
long as the Bush administration has the final say,
which it does despite international law or whatever
passes for it in Iraq where the law is what the US
occupier says it is. The sentence must be carried out
within 30 days after all appeals are exhausted and the
death sentence is ratified by Iraq's nominal president
and two vice-presidents who have no authority and take
their orders from US Ambassador and proconsul Zalmay
Khalilzad who takes his orders from Washington.
While few villains are more worthy than the man called
the Butcher of Baghdad for whatever fate might befall
him, not even a former dictator of his "stature"
should have to answer for his crimes before an illegal
tribunal established by an occupying power that has no
authority under international law. The fact that the
trial proceeded this way delegitimized the entire
judicial process and in the eyes of independent
jurists renders the verdict void and unrecognized.
This proceeding should only have taken place in the
sole independent venue constituted for this purpose -
the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague
established by the Rome Statute of 18 that gained
its authority to try cases in 2002. This court is a
permanent tribunal created to prosecute individuals
for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide
as defined under the Nuremberg Charter of 1945.
Saddam wasn't sent there because allowing him a
legitimate trial might have exposed the culpability of
US administrations and the West in his crimes and
would also have denied the Bush administration the
ability to have the show trial it wanted and not a
fair one according to international laws and norms.
It got all that and more. The eleven month "trial"
began in October, 2005 and concluded last July with a
verdict delayed for when it could be used most
effectively for an administration in big trouble with
mid-term congressional elections approaching.
Forty-eight hours ahead of them seemed about the right
positioning. The whole production leading to the
November 5 climax was a theatrical,
made-for-US-television extravaganza and sham from the
start, right up to the staged theatrics in the streets
following the announced verdict TV cameras just
happened to be around for as they were when Saddam's
statue in Baghdad's Firdos Square was toppled at an
earlier scheduled-for-a-US-television audience on
April 9, 2003 with a brought-in-for-the-occasion
"crowd" of "tens" to watch and cheer.......just like
it's done on a Hollywood sound stage.
The SICT was established, funded and staged-managed
from Washington with US-approved judges and a team of
American lawyers working out of the US Embassy in the
Green Zone preparing the case and directing the whole
process from beginning to end. It was a classic case
of victor's justice in full view assuring whatever the
outcome justice would never be served even for a man
like Saddam. It wasn't. Along the way from beginning
to end, it was a show trial circus best characterized
in the terminology of the "down under" marsupial
(whose name this trial besmirches) that's known to be
shy and retiring by nature and unthreatening to humans
unless provoked. The judgment rendered in Washington
and announced by the Baghdad SICT on November 5
provoked all people of conscience wanting justice
according to the rule of law, not the brand of it
practiced out of the Bush White House and Pentagon
these days.
The entire process was flawed, unfair and illegal
according to virtually all standards of international
law. It violated UN Resolution 1483 that required the
UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Iraq
to be responsible for "promoting the protection of
human rights" in the country. He did not. Nor did
his boss, Kofi Annan, take any action to guarantee
them or speak out against the violations he witnessed,
a clear abdication of the oath he was sworn to uphold:
"to save succeeding generations from the scourge of
war; to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights; to
establish conditions (promoting) justice....equal
rights of men and women (in all nations)....(respect
for) international law....promote social
progress....to ensure....armed force shall not be
used."
Kofi Annan, his representative and the UN body
they serve failed on all counts allowing a criminal
occupation and trial of Saddam to go on with barely a
whimper.
The trial itself violated almost every provision in
Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights. Its Preamble cites the UN Charter
that's binding international law and Universal
Declaration of Human Rights stating "civil and
political freedom....can only be achieved (if)
everyone may enjoy his civil and political rights (and
that it is the) obligation of States under the Charter
of the United Nations to promote....human rights and
freedoms."
The US is one of those states so
obligated.
Article 14 precisely stipulates the rights of the
accused which all signatories to the UN Charter are
obligated to observe under international law. In the
trial of Saddam Hussein, the US failed by almost every
measure and stands exposed and condemned in the eyes
of the free world for not having done so.
-- Provision 1 under Article 14 states "All persons
shall be equal before the courts and tribunals (and)
everyone shall be entitled to a fair and public
hearing by a competent, independent and impartial
tribunal established by law."
The Bush administration
was in complete violation of this provision.
-- Provision 2 guarantees "Everyone charged with a
criminal offense....the right to be presumed innocent
until proved guilty according to law."
Saddam was
pronounced guilty the moment George Bush signed off on
going to war, invading and occupying Iraq
-- Provision 3 guarantees the accused the following
rights: -- To be told clearly and promptly "of the nature
and cause of the charge against him."
-- "To have adequate time and facilities (to
prepare a) defence and to communicate with counsel of
his choosing."
-- "To be tried without undue delay."
-- "To be tried in his presence, and to defend
himself in person or through legal assistance of his
own choosing....."
-- "To examine, or have examined, the witnesses
against him (and those) on his behalf (under equal
conditions)."
-- To have an interpreter if needed
-- "Not to be compelled to testify against
himself or confess guilt."
The US occupier denied Saddam his legal right to a
proper defense according to most of the above
provisions
-- Provision 4 pertains to juveniles and was not
pertinent to the trial
-- Provision 5 guarantees "Everyone convicted of a
crime....the right to his conviction and sentence
being reviewed by a higher tribunal...."
What
pretense of a review process occurs from here
guarantees only a continuation of more show trial
theatrics if the proceeding is made public. If it
isn't, it will merely be a sham made-in-Washington pro
forma final sentencing staged-for-television hanging,
even if visuals of Saddam on a rope aren't shown to a
US audience.
-- Provision 6 pertains to those wrongfully convicted
being entitled to proper compensation. Whatever
Saddam's crimes were, and there's little doubt he
committed many, what he was convicted of on November 5
would never hold up in a real tribunal. The Bush
administration will never pay him damages, if so
ordered, just as the Reagan administration ignored the
World Court judgment against it in 1987 to pay
Nicaragua $17 billion for losses that country
sustained from US state terrorism committed against it
during the Contra war years in the 1980s. Hegemons
never pay for their crimes. They make their victims
pay for them.
-- Provision 7 guarantees no one shall be subjected to
double jeopardy. This hasn't yet come up in the
proceedings that are continuing, but as long as this
show trial goes on, the issue of "jeopardy" is not on
the table, and the US authority will do as it pleases
just as it has up to now.
By nearly all accepted standards of jurisprudence, the
Bush administration failed to comply with the above
provisions. It spent $75 million (approved by the
Pentagon and State Department) on the prosecution that
included the special "court room" that was more like a
Hollywood sound stage than a court of law. That
compared to the meager resources volunteer defense
lawyers had at their disposal. Saddam's lawyers
requested the right to visit their client from
December, 2003 when he was seized but weren't allowed
to do it as well as to have adequate and confidential
consultations vital to the preparation of a defense.
No visitations of consequence were allowed prior to
the trial, and, at each one permitted thereafter, US
officials claimed the right to read all materials
brought to the visiting room. This violated
lawyer-client confidentiality as did US monitoring of
all meetings audibly and visually. The defense was
also denied access to evidence to be used in the
trial, the investigative hearings preceding it, any
notice of witnesses the prosecution intended to call,
and the right to visit the site of the alleged crime
to obtain helpful evidence therefrom.
After the trial began, the US made and broke all the
rules of proper procedure besides what's explained
above. It removed four of the five judges initially
assigned to the trial while the chief judge in charge
during one portion of it resigned in protest against
government involvement in the proceedings. Shortly
thereafter two defense lawyers were murdered because
they weren't given proper protection even knowing they
were vulnerable for representing a controversial
"client."
Later a third one met the same fate. A
defense witness was then murdered. These are the
kinds of things that go on in an inquisition under
"banana republic" justice. If played out on Broadway,
it would be called a farce, but happening in an
illegally constituted Baghdad tribunal stage-managed
out of Washington and the Green Zone US Embassy, it's
a real life tragedy even for someone as notorious as
Saddam.
In a concluding act of arrogance and defiance, the
latest presiding US-installed hanging judge ejected
former US Attorney-General and noted human rights
defender Ramsey Clark who was serving as one of the
volunteer attorneys for Saddam - trying but failing to
assure he was given due process. Clark is an
international law expert and was a strident critic of
the procedure from the start. His ejection occurred
after handing the judge a memorandum calling the trial
a travesty of justice. Judge Raud Abdel Rahman
responded in his characteristic fashion saying "Get
him out of the hall. He came from America to ridicule
the Iraqi people and ridicule the court."
The judge neglected to mention he and his US bosses
ridiculed and defiled every proper standard of
jurisprudence now continuing in the next stage for a
US audience, of course. Saddam is currently on trial
by the same tribunal along with six others on separate
charges related to the so-called Anfal Kurdish
minority who were subjected to mass killings and other
abuses in 1988. Can we stand another round of this as
the Bush administration wants to squeeze every ounce
of political capital out of this man before they let
twist in the wind and be forgotten. The world will
never forget the travesty of justice that took place
in that so-called Baghdad tribunal that showed the
world who the real criminals are who should have been
front and center in the dock of justice but never will
be in a world ruled by victor's justice.
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