LLM Human Rights - on prosectution - Case Study Example

During his reign he did a lot of inhuman atrocities against them on the pretext of their opposing his regime or for supporting Iran in the war. After the fall of Bagdad most of his lieutenants were captured but Saddam remained at large and was ultimately captured on the night of 12th December 2003. ' After the initial annexation of Iraq, it was ruled by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which was later on replaced by an interim government of Iraq. CPA created Supreme Iraqi criminal Tribunal (SICT), for the trial of the Saddam and other members of the Baath Party against charges of committing war crimes and other crimes against humanity.

SICT held trials in front of five judges who heard both the sides and dispensed judgment and in doing so there was no provision of jury, there was also a chamber for further appeals consisting of nine judges.'The first trial of the tribunal began on 19th of October 2005, with the case of Dujail massacres of 1982, for which Saddam and seven others were tried.' Although one of the lesser crimes of Saddam, considering his standards, Dujails was probably taken up before the more serious Al-Anfal massacres because Anfal was much bigger in proportion and hence was expected to take much more time.

Dujail is a Shitte town, having among its residents many supporters of the Dawa party, which was opposed to Saddam's rule. On 8th of July 1982, Saddam had gone to the town to praise those Shia's who were fighting the Iran - Iraq war on his behalf. Idea was to get more support from the large Shia community to fight the war against Iran. As he was returning from Dujail, his motorcade was fired on by a member of the Dawa party. Although Saddam was not hurt, he decided on a general retaliation. In the events that followed, his security forces killed nearly 150 civilians of Dujail and many were severly tortured.

Also a large number of residents including women, children and the aged were send to the concentration camps. During the trial, one of the victims, who was 15 years old at the time of the massacre testified about the genocide. (McGeough, 2005) Based on this case along with Saddam, Barzan Hassan, former Iraqi intelligence chief, and Awad Bandar, former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, and Taha Yassin Ramadan, the former vice-president were also ordered to be executed, for participating in crimes against humanity.

The more serious anti-Kurdish "Anfal" operation was carried out between February and September 1988 by Saddam Hussein. It was conducted in eight stages, with about 2, 00,000 ground troops bolstered by air support. Its primary purpose was to wipe out any Iranian intrusion in the region and also to put to rest the dream of Kurdish independence. The main targets of this campaign were the battle worthy adults and young men. Saddam wanted to exterminate them all, so that no one should be left to take up arms against his regime.

It was conducted under Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majidin, who was appointed in charge of the Northern region of Iraq, in March 1987. 'During these campaigns men (above the age of 15) were set apart from the women, later these men were killed and their bodies were dumped in mass graves.' Some of the sites, later excavated were found to have the bodies of thousands of victims. According to liberal estimates some fifty thousand Kurds died in these attacks, while the actual figure is supposed