Allawi: the need to accelerate the trial of Saddam Hussein and his aides

The Iraqi prime minister Eyad Allawi yesterday urged the Iraqi judges to accelerate efforts to try the toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his aides.

An official spokesman for Allawi said that the prime minister who received yesterday in his office in Baghdad several judges of the Iraqi criminal court "urged the need to accelerate the trial of main figures of the former regime according to accusations addressed to them by investigations judges." The spokesman added that Allawi stressed "honoring the independence of judiciary and "showed the readiness of the government to support this great efforts and giving it priority." In the same context, the Swedish "Expression" paper said yesterday that two of Saddam Hussein's groups received asylum in Sweden, after they had escaped the American occupation forces in Iraq and they are hiding in one of the northern cities.

The paper indicated that an agent in the Iraqi intelligence, it did not identify, said that the two men who were not identified, in their 40s, were two Generals in the Iraqi army. The paper said the two men fled from Tikrit, their birth place, two months ago to Jordan where they were helped by former agents to Saddam Hussein to get plane tickets and an entry visa to the member states in the European Union.