The Bush administration's political goals with the Nov. 5 announcement of a death sentence for President Saddam Hussein and other defendants in Iraq
Speaker: Ramsey Clark
PRESS CONFERENCE November 1, 2006, 1pm
National Press Club
529 14th St. NW, Wash. DC
Zenger Room, 13th FloorRamsey Clark will report on the Bush Administration’s determination to have the Iraqi Special Tribunal, a Court it created and controls, announce the convictions and death sentences of President Saddam Hussein, Vice President Taha Ramadan and other former officials of the government of Iraq on November 5, 2006, two days before the November 7 Congressional elections in the U.S. The high probability that death sentences will cause greater violence and irreconcilable division in Iraq reveals that the Bush Administration cares more about the November elections than the lives of U.S. troops, the Iraqi people and the rule of law. Such a blatant corruption of justice for political gain, indifferent to truth, integrity in government, life and peace, sends a clear message. Unless the U.S. government radically changes policy, the Iraqi people have come to the conclusion that they can hope to end the U.S. occupation and exploitation of their resources only by armed struggle.
The case itself involved the Iraqi government’s reaction to assassination attempts on the lives of the President, the then Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz and other officials in 1980-82 at the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war. The planned executions were carried out by the Dawa Party of the present Prime Ministers, first Jaafari and now Maliki, who supported the assassination attempts then and decades later, under the protection and direction of the U.S., ordered the prosecution of the intended victims. The reaction of the government of Iraq, which the attempted assassinations were intended to overthrow, was self defense, arrest and judicial investigations and proceedings which after 3 years resulted in 148 death sentences based on confessions, or guilty plea’s, in 1985.
The U.S. created Iraqi Special Tribunal which will assess the death sentences is not legal, independent, or impartial as required by international law and simple justice.
The case was tried in the midst of raging violence across Iraq which has taken hundreds of thousands of lives. Three defense counsel were assassinated in the first trial and a fourth has been assassinated in the second trial, to date.
Two Chief Judges were removed from the IST in the midst of the trial by political pressure. A third has been removed in the second trial, to date.
The IST limited the defense to five weeks of testimony then cut off its witnesses. The Chief Judge said "if you cannot prove your innocence with 34 witnesses, 100 will not help." The Court delayed and rescheduled its decision in the case from mid June for nearly five months to influence the U.S. elections.
U.S. lawyers involved in creating and directing the IST, unable to restrain their desire that their role be known, announced the length of the final judgment in the first trial, over 300 pages, presumably in English, more than a month ago. The planned "November surprise" should surprise no one.
The IST and the trials it has conducted have been overwhelmingly condemned by international law experts and media as illegal and hopelessly unfair.
The American people must renounce the U.S. role in creating and directing the Iraqi Special Tribunal to do its will and demand a lawful, independent and impartial international tribunal if prosecutions are to proceed.
UN HUMAN RIGHTS BODY DECLARES
SADDAM DETENTION AND TRIAL ILLEGAL AS A VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS LAW
An United Nations expert human rights law body has declared the trial of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before an Iraqi special court is illegal because it violates the right to fair trial under international law.
In the decision hand down on 1 September 2006, but not provide to the former Iraqi President's lawyers until just a few days ago, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that the "deprivation of liberty of Mr. Saddam Hussein is arbitrary, being in contravention of article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights to which Iraq and the United States are parties."
The Working Groupwhich consists of legal experts from Iran, Algeria, Paraguay, Spain and Hungaryspent more than two years collecting information and reviewing the case before making its decision. The Working Group's decisions are based on its interpretation of international treaties, primarily the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. In this case the Working Group found article 14 of the International Covenant to have been violated in numerous ways.
On 30 November 2005, the Working Group had issued a Preliminary Opinion and requested the United States and Iraq to remedy the situation. Since then, as a second trial began, another defence lawyer has been killed, the United States government has continued to fail to provide adequate security, a relative of one of judges has been killed, the defence lawyers have been threatened to the extent that they can no longer safely participate in proceedings, and the violations of due process in the courtroom have continued.
"The decision of the UN Working Group is not surprising. Anyone who has been following the trial knows that it has been a gross abuse of law. The Working Opinion vindicates what I and other international legal experts have been claiming for months. The ball is now in the United States' court. Together with the occupation government it have installed in Iraq, the United States government must decide if it will respect international law or whether it continue to act with disrespect for this law," said Dr. Curtis F.J. Doebbler, a professor law at An-Najah National University and the lawyer for the former Iraqi President who filed the case.
Doebbler added, "If the United States continues to so blatantly violate international law, the rest of the international community must impose very serious consequences. If they do not, we will have lost the war to all those who say that law does not count and that violence is the only way forward. Is this the message George Bush wants to send? It is the message he is sending."
The Working Group lacks authority to enforce its decisions, however, states that act contrary to the decision of the Working Group have been viewed a pariah state in the international community and often been subjected to sanctions, restrictions on the travel of their officials, and boycotts.
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