Saddam prosecutor to present evidence on campaign against Kurds News
Saddam prosecutor to present evidence on campaign against Kurds

[JURIST] Documents showing Saddam Hussein's role in Iraq's 1987-1989 Anfal campaign [HRW backgrounder] against the Kurds are ready to be presented to the Iraqi High Criminal Court [official website; JURIST news archive], according to Jaafar Al Moussawi, the chief prosecutor in the Saddam Hussein trial [JURIST news archive], speaking to AFP Saturday. The Anfal campaign led to the deaths of more than 180,000 Kurds and the destruction of 4,500 villages, including the gassing of thousands of Kurds in Halabja [US State Dept. backgrounder] in 1988. Saddam is currently on trial for the 1982 massacre of 148 Shiite villagers in Dujail [JURIST report], and will later go on trial for the Anfal killings, if he is not convicted and hung in the Dujail trial first. The Anfal documents, as well as new Dujail documents, must undergo authentication by experts before they can be presented to the Court because Saddam and his co-defendants earlier questioned the authenticity of documents entered against them in the Dujail trial.

Saddam’s defense team recently added a female Saudi lawyer [JURIST report] – the second female on the defense team. His trial on the Dujail charge has been adjourned until April 5 [JURIST report]. AFP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

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