Saddam Accused of Genocide in New Charges

BAGHDAD, Iraq Apr 4, 2006 (AP)â?? The Iraq tribunal announced new criminal charges against Saddam Hussein and six others Tuesday, accusing them of genocide and crimes against humanity stemming from a 1980s crackdown against Kurds.

The move, tantamount to an indictment under the Iraqi legal system, paves the way for a second trial of the ousted ruler. Saddam already is being tried in the killings of more than 140 Shiites in a town north of Baghdad.

Under Iraqi law, the second trial could begin anytime after 45 days.

Investigative judge Raid Juhi said the charges against Saddam and the others had been filed with another judge, who will review the evidence and order a trial date.

The new case involves Saddam's role in Operation Anfal, a three-phase move against Kurds in northern Iraq during the war with Iran in the late 1980s. Anfal included the March 16 gas attack on the village of Halabja in which 5,000 people, including women and children, died.

Human rights groups consider the Halabja attack one of the gravest atrocities allegedly committed by Saddam's regime.

However, Juhi told The Associated Press that the Halabja gas attack would be prosecuted separately and was not considered part of the charges filed Tuesday.

"These people were subjected to forced displacement and illegal detention involving thousands of civilians," Juhi said. "They were placed in different detention centers. The villages were destroyed and burned. Homes and houses of worshippers and buildings of civilians were leveled without reason or a military requirement."

Others accused in the Anfal case include Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan Majid, or "Chemical Ali"; former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmad; former intelligence chief Saber Abdul Aziz al-Douri; former Republican Guard commander Hussein al-Tirkiti; former Nineveh provincial Gov. Taher Tafwiq al-Ani; and former top military commander Farhan Mutlaq al-Jubouri.

Saddam and seven others have been on trial since Oct. 19 for the deaths of Shiite Muslims following a 1982 assassination attempt against him in the town of Dujail. Iraqi authorities chose to try Saddam separately for various alleged crimes rather than lump all the cases together.

The Dujail trial was the first of what Iraqi authorities say could be up to a dozen proceedings. Saddam could face death by hanging if convicted in the Dujail case.

It is unclear whether the sentence would be carried out while other trials were in progress.

In December, a Dutch court sentenced chemicals merchant Frans van Anraat to 15 years in prison for selling Saddam's regime the chemicals used in the gas attacks. The ruling, the first ever dealing with atrocities under Saddam, concluded that the attacks constituted genocide.

The court had no jurisdiction to try Saddam, but prosecutors named Saddam and "Chemical Ali" as co-conspirators. The Iraqi tribunal has access to several weeks of testimony and evidence presented in that trial.

One document was a government decree said to have been signed by Saddam on June 20, 1987, ordering "special artillery bombs to kill as many people as possible" in the Kurdish area. Special artillery, Dutch prosecutors said, meant chemical weapons.

"Chemical Ali" was heard in an April 21, 1988, audio clip ordering that people caught in Kurdish areas "have to be destroyed â?¦ must have their heads shot off." In another radio fragment, he said: "I will attack them with chemical weapons and kill them all."
http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ory?id=1803933

And here we were "mislead" to believe that the U.S. was behind all Saddams chemical weapons...oh well. I wonder if he'll swing from a rope or be beheaded?:thumbsup:

How about we put Mabus....I mean G.W. Bush on trial for killing thousands of our OWN people on 9/11 and countless hundreds of thousands of innocents in Iraq!!!

Let us Americans not make the same mistake as the Germans did in the 30s!!!!

umm probably because Saddam is a proven terrorist while the allegations against Bush are just conspiracy theorist BS. lol