JURIST's Paper Chase concludes our special Sunday coverage of the capture of Saddam Hussein with an exclusive primer of relevant, high-quality online resources on his potential trial:

• Saddam Hussein's Iraq: War Crimes (US Department of State)
  
  
• Wanted for Crimes Against Humanity: Saddam Hussein (INDICT)
  
  
• Iraq: War Crimes Tribunal Established (IRIN, December 11, 2003)
  • Statute of the Iraqi Special Tribunal for Crimes Against Humanity
  
  
• Let the UN Put Saddam on Trial (Alex Boraine, International Center for Transitional Justice, April 21, 2003)
  
  
• Saddam Hussein's Violations of the Geneva Convention (Carrie Satterlee, Heritage Foundation, April 17, 2003)
  
  
• Prosecuting Iraqi War Crimes; A Consideration of the Different Forum Options (US Senate Governmental Affairs Committee testimony, April 10, 2003)
  • Richard Prosper [PDF] (Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, US Department of State)
  • Ruth Wedgewood (Yale Law School)
  
  
• Iraq: Prosecuting War Criminals (Council on Foreign Relations, April 8, 2003)
  
  
• Briefing on Geneva Convention, EPWs and War Crimes (US Department of Defense, April 7, 2003)
  
  
• A possible deal: No war crimes case if Saddam leaves (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 18, 2003)
  
  
• Justice For Iraq (Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, December 2002)
  • Indict Saddam (Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch, March 22, 2002)
  • Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds (July 1993)
  
  
• Trying Saddam: The Options (Professor Anthony Dworkin, Brooklyn Law School, November 18, 2002)
  
  
• Iraq: Crimes Against Humanity (US State Department, May 7, 2002)
  
  
• Put Saddam on Trial for War Crimes (Michael Rubin, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, August 6, 2001)
  
  
• The Case for Justice in Iraq (David Scheffer, US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, September 18, 2000)

More to follow...

Law professors offered a range of opinions on the possible venues for the trial of Saddam Hussein in media comments and appearances Sunday. On CNN, Yale Law School's Ruth Wedgewood, generally considered a supporter of US policy in Iraq, said that "the reason to try Saddam... in an Iraqi-led court is that the whole emphasis should be on returning political power and judicial power -- which is part of political power -- to the Iraqi people." She suggested that international suggestions that it would be wrong to hand power back to Iraqis in this respect would be "obviously be a mockery of what they've been saying in the past." Read a transcript of her remarks here. George Washington University law professor Stephen Saltzburg seemed to agree that an Iraqi tribunal was the appropriate forum for Saddam's prosecution. He told the Dallas Morning News, "Most of the atrocities that he committed were atrocities that had nothing to do with our invasion of Iraq. It wasn't Americans he was torturing. It wasn't Americans who were disappearing. It was Iraqis." University Alabama School of Law Dean Ken Randall said, however, that the US would be within its rights in Iraq if it tried Saddam itself. He told AP that "The decision is up to the United States. It has captured him. It is the occupying power," although he said that the US might him over to a court representing coalition forces, perhaps bringing in judges and prosecutors from other countries. In the Washington Post, American University law professor Diane Orentlicher said she had "serious concerns" about the current capacity of the Iraqi legal system to try Saddam; she too mentioned the alternative of some kind of judicial hybrid modeled along the lines of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, where local judges sit alongside international jurists.

The New York Times carries a detailed story on a 30-minute meeting Sunday between captured former Iraqi dictator, members of the current Iraqi Governing Council, and Coalition officials. The Times quotes Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, as saying "He was quite lucid. He had command of his faculties. He would not apologize to the Iraqi people. He did not deny any of the crimes he was confronted with having done. He tried to justify them." Read the full story here.

Within hours of the capture of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, international divisions have developed over the potential appropriateness of the death penalty for him if he's found guilty of war crimes or genocide. The governing statute of the Iraqi war crimes tribunal established just last week by the Iraqi Governing Council does not specifically prohibit a death sentence against a convicted party. A Foreign Office junior minister told the BBC today that London would make clear to Iraq that it was opposed to the death penalty for the deposed leader. AFP has more. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, on the other hand, told Australian television that he would "absolutely" support the death penalty for Saddam if that were the ruling of an Iraqi tribunal. Howard also said that he would prefer to see the former dictator tried in Iraq than by an international tribunal in The Hague. AAP has more. Both the UK and Australia are part of the US-led Coalition that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime earlier this year.

A senior US defense official has denied a report made earlier today by CBS News to the effect that Saddam Hussein had been removed from Iraq. AFP quotes the unnamed official as saying "that's just not true." The report has also been denied by Iraqi judge Dara Nuredin, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council and the chairman of its legal committee, who says that the former Iraqi President is "on Iraqi soil under a tight guard." Nuredin also told reporters that Saddam would be the first person to appear before the new Iraqi war crimes tribunal "if the case against him is completed with all the necessary evidence." Read the AFP story here.

US policy on the trial of Saddam Hussein appears to be unequivocally set out on a current State Department website:

Saddam Hussein and his closest aides have committed a long list of criminal violations of international humanitarian law and the laws and customs of war. Saddam Hussein and his closest aides should be investigated, indicted, and prosecuted for these crimes. The goal of the United States is to see Saddam indicted by an international tribunal. [emphasis added] We are gathering our own evidence against Saddam and providing support to groups working on Iraqi war crimes issues."

View the website here. Recent statements by Richard Prosper, US Ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues, nonetheless support an Iraqi-led judicial process, albeit perhaps one internationalized in key respects. Review an April 2003 interview with Ambassador Prosper here and review Ambassador Prosper's testimony to the US Senate Governmental Affairs Committee on April 10, 2003, in which he stated "For the regime's crimes committed against Iraqi citizens, we believe that those responsible should be held accountable before an Iraqi-led process, possibly ranging from tribunals to truth and reconciliation commissions."

New York-based monitoring group Human Rights Watch warned Sunday that the Iraqi Governing Council must not mount a "show trial" of captured Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. In particular, it expressed concern that the recently-created Iraqi tribunal set up to try former Iraqi officials for war crimes lacks necessary safeguards and experience:

The tribunal law includes provisions on the rights of the accused and applies definitions of international crimes that are largely consistent with international law. However, key provisions are lacking to ensure legitimate and credible trials. The tribunal law does not require that judges and prosecutors have experience working on complex criminal cases and cases involving serious human rights crimes. Nor does the law permit the appointment of non-Iraqi prosecutors or investigative judges with relevant expertise... The tribunal law does not prohibit the death penalty and does not ensure that guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In addition, the law does not sufficiently address protection of witnesses and victims or security for the tribunal and its staff.

Human Rights Watch recommends that the Council "partner with the United Nations to create an accountability process that works." Read the full HRW press release here.

Addressing the American people on the capture of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, President Bush has said that he "will face the justice he denied to millions", but gave no indication of how, when or, where. The White House has posted the full text of his statement.

The White House website says that President Bush will address the nation at 12:15 PM Eastern Time. Watch the address here. The White House has meanwhile posted a transcript of a press briefing earlier this morning by White House spokesman Scott McClellan at which he discussed the capture of Saddam Hussein.

CBS News is reporting that Saddam Hussein has been taken out of Iraq and is being held by the US at an undisclosed location.

AP quotes Iraqi Governing Council President Adnan Pachachi as saying today that the now-captured Saddam Hussein will face public trial in Iraq, presumably before the war crimes tribunal recently approved by the Council (review the English text of the tribunal's governing statute). Said Pachachi, "There's no question that the process will be an Iraqi process." US authorities, however, are as yet unsure about what they will do with the ousted Iraqi leader. Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of US forces in Iraq, said today that "at this point, that has not been determined, we continue to process Saddam at this point in time and those issues will be resolved in the near future." Amnesty International has meanwhile called for the former Iraqi President to be given POW status and allowed visits from the Red Cross. AP has more. Qatar-based Islam Online quotes Egyptian law professor and former Egyptian Foreign Affairs undersecretary Abdullah Al-Ashal as saying that the new Iraqi tribunal would not be the right place to try Saddam: "The Council is under US control and is made up of opponents of Saddam's regime, so it is necessary for international bodies to co-try the captured president," he said. That perspective is shared by Bahiudin Hassan, director of the Cairo Human Rights Center, who told the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel that "Because the current regime in Iraq is appointed by the United States, so any trial by either of them would be null and void." IOL has more here.

UPDATE: AFP considers Saddam Hussein's likely legal fate in this story.

The BBC has posted video from today's press conference with Coalition officials in Baghdad at which they showed footage of Saddam Hussein in US custody shortly after his capture. The audio narration by US Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez was repeatedly interrupted by shouts and cries by Iraqis in the briefing room.

The US Department of Defense is celebrating US forces' capture of Saddam Hussein on its website:

This is a JURIST special report.... The US Administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, has announced that US forces have captured ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in a hideout near his hometown of Tikrit.

At about 8:30 PM local time last evening Saddam was found hiding in a cellar of a farmhouse. He did not resist arrest and is unharmed. DNA tests have reportedly confirmed his identity. US officials say he is currently being held by Coalition forces at an undisclosed location. The Coalition Provisional Authority has released the full text of Ambassador Bremer's announcement. BBC News has more, including a photo gallery of images taken from video footage of the captured Hussein released by the Coalition. Voice of America provides live audio coverage.

UPDATE: The BBC has posted dramatic video of the Bremer announcement.

On December 14, 1927, Iraqi and British officials agreed to a new treaty under which Britain would recognize the independence of Iraq and promised to support its admission into the League of Nations in 1932. In return, Iraq granted the British three new airbases in Iraq and agreed that British officers should train the Iraqi army. Learn more about Iraq's British heritage.