Iran protests "petty" nature of scheduled Saddam trial News
Iran protests "petty" nature of scheduled Saddam trial

[JURIST] The chief of Iran's Judiciary said Monday that Iran objected to the "insignificant and petty" indictment on which former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein will be tried beginning October 19. The Iraqi government confirmed Sunday [JURIST report] that Hussein and several of his lieutenants would go on trial that day for the slaughter of Shiite residents of the Iraqi town of Dujail in 1982 after a failed assassination attempt. Iran fought a bloody eight-year war against Saddam's Iraq between 1980 and 1988 that cost the lives of up to a million people and had previously demanded [JURIST report] that Hussein face charges relating to that conflict. Iranian official news agency IRNA quoted Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi as saying that Iran would now prepare its own indictment: "What is important for the judiciary are the rights that were lost by Iranian citizens during the eight-year sacred defence war, those who lost their loved ones and the many war veterans who were wounded by chemical weapons." AFP has more.

Do you think Iraq is right to undertake its first prosecution of Hussein on a "lesser charge"? E-mail us at JURIST@law.pitt.edu.