The prosecution of deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was supposed to bring justice and transparency to a country where those were in short supply. Instead, the proceedings are dissolving into a mockery of those values.
Since the mass-killing trials – there have been two – began nearly a year ago, the drama in and around the courtroom has been alternately tragic, absurd, mystifying and just plain untoward.
Three of Hussein’s defense team have been assassinated. One judge was recently removed from the trial because he overtly sympathized with Hussein, proclaiming the former Iraqi strongman was not a dictator. Defense lawyers then boycotted the proceedings. Other presiding judges seemed to have a tenuous grasp of the rules of law and courtroom decorum.
This week, Judge Muhammad al-Uraibi yelled at Hussein and his co-defendants to “shut up” and “sit down.” He ejected Hussein and postponed the case to Oct. 9.
Distressingly, the situation inside the courtroom is not unlike the chaos in the streets of Baghdad and in the Iraqi legislature.
Mind-numbing sectarian violence claims about 100 civilian lives a day. And debate among lawmakers over divvying up of the country into states frequently ends in shouting matches among Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions.
Hussein, who is 69 years old, ruled Iraq for more than two decades, leaving a swath of lawlessness and violence. He is accused of gassing his own countrymen and is said to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
After the U.S. invasion of 2003, he went into hiding. Once he was caught, officials pledged he would get a fair trial at the hands of Iraq’s judicial system and, presumedly, his just desserts.
A verdict is still forthcoming on his first trial, which began about a year ago on charges that involved the killings and torture of more than 140 Iraqis in Dujail. (The incident has been considered a reprisal for an assassination attempt on Hussein in 1982 when he was visiting the town.)
The second trial involves the killing of 180,000 Kurds in 1987 and 1988. In what has been called the Anfal campaign, Iraqi forces used airstrikes and chemical weapons on the Kurds.
It’s a sad turn of events that a prosecution that was designed to show that even murderous dictators can be brought to justice has been such a mad circus. Iraq sorely needs to gain faith in justice and public institutions, but the conduct of the trial has turned such a promise on its ear.
