Saddam Hussein trial is rigged
Monday, October 17th, 2005When they say Saddam will be brought to justice, apparently they mean frontier justice. Human Rights Watch has released a report indicating that when Saddam and other former Iraqi officials go on trial October 19, they will likely be deprived of a fair trial.
Saddam has yet to be charged officially. His attorneys cannot get a written copy of the rules of the tribunal that will try him. These flaws alone suggest that his defense cannot possibly be ready any time soon, but there are more and more serious problems. The prosecution is not required to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. If the tribunal issues a death sentence, it is illegal for any Iraqi official to commute the sentence, and the sentence must be carried out with 30 days.
That the U.S. is no friend of international law goes without saying, but it’s clear that as George Galloway says, standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington. The so-called liberation of Iraq will culminate in a trial that would never be allowed to take place in a civilian court in this country. It is a pretense at a trial. Saddam is to be summarily executed.
Why not just dispatch a death squad and be done with it?
