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.

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).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

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