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Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Victims want public trial for Saddam
BAGHDAD—The victims of captured Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein are demanding a public trial of their chief torturer to show the world how they suffered during decades of darkness.
“In the coming days, at the request of the Americans, I will have a confrontation with the former dictator,” said Hamid Faraj Hafer, president of the League of Iraqi Political Prisoners, a group set up after the regime fell.
Death penalty
Saddam Hussein could face the death penalty if convicted in an Iraqi court, the president of the US-installed interim Iraqi Governing Council Abdel Aziz al-Hakim said yesterday.
Asked if the death penalty could be applied, he said “Yes, absolutely.”
Iraq’s interim leaders want Saddam Hussein to be tried by a special tribunal set up last week to hear cases against members of his regime.
When the former Iraqi leader faces trial, it will be the second time Hafer will have come up close with his torturer.
Pulled out teeth
“In 1981, during the trial when I was sentenced to death on charges of spying and treason, I shouted to Saddam who was in the court room, ‘I’m cleaner than you in my pyjamas and barefeet.’ He jumped on me, broke my wrists and pulled out several of my teeth with some instrument.”
Hafer spent a large slice of his life in the feared Qasr al-Nihaya prison, meaning Palace of the End, and then under house arrest after his sentence was reduced to 10 years thanks to his father’s connections.
Criminal
Today he badly wants to see Saddam answer for crimes against humanity.
“I cannot accept that he be treated as a prisoner of war. He inflicted so much suffering on us all, Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, that he must be tried in Iraq in public as a criminal.”
The league’s offices were besieged Monday on news of Saddam’s arrest by families wanting to file detailed complaints about the murder or disappearance of loved ones.
“We have more than 6,000 dossiers ready for investigation (by magistrates),” Hafer said. “I have already had a confrontation with Barzan al-Tikriti, Saddam’s half-brother, in a prison since he was caught by the Americans.” (AFP)
(December 16, 2003 issue)
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