Saddam's trial starts, defense asks postponement

Two years after his arrest, the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein will be brought before the court today, however, his defendant lawyers intend to appeal the legitimacy of the court which is supported by the USA.

Khalil al-Duleimi, the lawyer of the former Iraqi president, said he will ask for the postponement of the trial for three months.

Duleimi said he will immediately ask for the postponement on the ground of the time limit given to him to prepare for the case. A statement by the defense said that Duleimi will give a document composed of 132 points objecting to the court as not having legal authority to try President Hussein, a trial which American officials chose its five judges two years ago.

During Saddam's trial, other trials will be made for 7 persons including Barazam Ibrahim al-Tikrity, the former director of intelligence, Taha yassin Ramadan, the former vice president, Awad Hamid al-Bander, the Baath Party official in al-Dajil town; and many others. These persons will be accused of carrying out a massacre in Dajil in 1982.

Saddam Hussein, who is 68 years old, is having his trial held in a luxury hall in a building in Baghdad, where the former President used to keep gifts given to him from foreign leaders and his own people.

The case in which the former president is accused of is the first among many others which he might be tried for. One is pertinent to killing the population of a Kurdish village by a poison gas in 1988, and another of brutal oppressions of a Shiite uprising following the Gulf war of 1991.