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Prosecuting Saddam's trial judge in the UK
11:03 AM ET
Giovanni Di Stefano [former defense lawyer for Saddam Hussein; Studio Legale Internazionale, Rome]: "On the 17th March 2007 I wrote to the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, seeking leave to prosecute in the criminal courts in accordance with the Geneva Conventions Act 1957 Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman, the judge that sentenced Saddam Hussein et al to death.
I am pleased to confirm that the Attorney General has replied to me seeking disclosures and the evidence upon which I intend to rely for the Prosecution of this person. I am grateful to the Attorney General in the fair manner upon which he has approached this matter.
It is my contention, supported by many, that Saddam Hussein et all did not receive a fair trial. This view is supported by a number of organisations, including the UNHRC which filed a brief in the case of Taha Ramadan.
I shall be responding to Lord Goldsmith and expect to be granted leave to indict Rahman at the Central Criminal Court in London. He has sought the protection of the United Kingdom. He must now abide by its jurisdiction and laws."
Opinions expressed in JURIST's Hotline are the sole responsibility of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of JURIST's editors, staff, or the University of Pittsburgh.
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Comments:
Whle Saddam's trial was hardly a model for what we would like to see in the way of criminal trials, I think Mr. Di Stefano has a mighty hill to climb before he will be able to show that Saddam was deprived of a fair trial, especially under the conditions prevailing in Iraq at the time. It is hardly surprising, however, that Lord Goldsmith did not simply dismiss the petition without seeing the evidence. But I think that he problem was not that there was not a fair trial, but that there was not an adequate appeals process to determine if the court may have committed reversible judicial errors, and that the haste with which the execution was carried out (not to mention the scene on the gallows) were more than a little unseemly - hardly the fault of the trial judge.
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Friday, April 27, 2007
