Iraq takes custody of Saddam today
TWO days after Iraq regained its sovereignty from the United States (U.S.)-led coalition forces, the ousted President Saddam Hussein will today be handed over to the interim government.
The Interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi who made the disclosure yesterday, said that the former Iraqi President and about 11 top members of his ousted government would still be guarded by U.S. soldiers to ensure he does not escape.
Also, Allawi said Saddam and 11 others would tomorrow appear before Iraqi judges to be charged.
A lawyer, who is leading the tribunal that will try the detainees, Salem Chalabi, said Saddam would be charged with crime against humanity for 1988 massacres of Kurds, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Allawi said: "This government has formally requested the transfer of the most notorious and high-profile detainees. These people will face justice before the special Iraqi court created in January to try members of the former regime for crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.
Saddam, accused by Iraqis of ordering the killing and torture of thousands of people during 35 years of Baathist rule, has been held as a prisoner of war since U.S. forces found him hiding in a hole near Tikrit, north of Baghdad, in December.
Allawi said the U.S.-led multinational force would keep physical custody of Saddam and 11 others until Iraq's nascent police force was capable of detaining them securely.
The tribunal would give them a fair and open trial, but it would not start for several months," Allawi said.
But a French lawyer, Emmanuel Ludot, one of a 20-strong team appointed by Saddam's wife to represent him, said the former president would refuse to acknowledge any court or any judge, as: "It will be a court of vengeance, a settling of scores."
According to Ludot, any judge sitting in the court would be under pressure to find Saddam guilty, adding that he expects Saddam to say last year's U.S.-led war was illegal.
"Allawi's new government is under pressure to demonstrate to ordinary Iraqis that a break from the past has been made, while also showing it is tough on violence blighting the country," the lawyers said.
Meanwhile, three U.S. Marines were killed in a roadside bomb blast in Baghdad yesterday, rising to 632 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in action since the U.S.-led invasion in March last year.
"I don't know why the terrorists want to kill us. We just want to help Iraqis," said a Marine at the scene.
Highlighting the security problems facing Allawi's government, Al Jazeera television aired a video-tape showing what militants said was the execution of a U.S soldier.
The soldier was named in the video footage as Private Keith Maupin, 20, seized by guerrillas in April.
A gunman was seen firing a shot at the soldier, wearing greenish overalls and seen only from behind. The body fell into a hole.
There was no independent confirmation Maupin was the man killed.
While uncertainty shrouded his fate, three Turkish hostages were freed by a group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zargawi, accused by Washington of links to al-Qaeda.
His group had threatened to behead the Turks yesterday unless their government told companies to stop dealing with U.S. forces in Iraq, Ankara rejected the demand.
"Jama at al-Tawahid and Jihad announced the release of the Turkish hostages for the sake of Moslems, in Turkey and their demonstrations against U.S. President George W Bush, a masked man said on a video-tape.
A three-day visit by Bush to Turkey for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit prompted Turkish demonstrators to take to the streets to protest against his policies in Iraq.
Another two Turks seized in Iraq were said to have told their families they were well and would return to Turkey within a week.
Kidnap groups have threatened to kill a U.S. Marine and a Pakistani. The Pakistani's captors said at the weekend that he would be beheaded within three days unless Iraqi prisoners were released.
A day after Iraq regained its sovereignty, ambassadors from three nations in the U.S.-led coalition - the United States, Australia and Denmark - presented their credentials to the new government, formally resuming diplomatic ties.
John Negroponte, the new U.S. ambassador, who was previously Washington's envoy to the United Nations (UN), said he looked forward to working with the Iraqi government.
The hand-over of power helped drive world oil prices to their lowest level in more than two months on trader's hopes of less sabotage and steadier exports.
As part of a policy, introduced after the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal, the U.S. military freed dozens more prisoners from the Baghdad jail and a detention centre at Umm Qasr in the South.
We were just taken from our houses, with no explanation," said Ayad al-Azzawi, among those released from Umm Qasr. "I was in Prison for nine months and they never charge me, he said.
