Oct. 19 CHINA: Arms-dealing gang members given death penalty 19 members of an arms-dealing gang with alleged crimes in rape, murder, extortion and illegal gambling, have been sentenced by Meishan Intermediate People's Court in west China's Sichuan Province. Wednesday's China Daily said that the head of the gang, Ren Bing, and 5 henchmen were handed death sentences last Wednesday,while 13 others received sentences of between 1 and 10 years. The gang's reign of terror began in 2000, and spanned four years. Local residents were relieved to see punishment had been meted out. >From 2000 to 2004, Ren and his gang illegally purchased and sold weapons, and were involved in murder, extortion, gambling andrape. The downfall of Ren's gang was triggered by an extortion case against Li Sheng, a businessman from south China's Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. The newspaper quoted a source in Renshou as saying that Ren could not have committed so many serious crimes without the collusion of local police. In early 2003, Ren's men killed a rival gang member during a fight. A police officer called Li Li, helped one of Ren's men involved in the killing, Zhang Dong, escape. The police officer has been sentenced to two-year in prison, Zhang is serving a 20-year sentence. (source: XinhuaNet) IRAQ: Saddam and Iraq on Trial The opportunity created by the trial of Saddam Hussein to introduce the rule of law and the idea of national reconciliation into Iraq has been largely squandered even before the courtroom proceedings begin. At almost every turn, ill-considered decisions by the United States and Iraq's dominant Shiite-religious and Kurdish-nationalist parties have put politics and score-settling first. The cost has been an indifference to legal scrupulousness, as well as a failure to distinguish between pursuing the specific crimes of a dictator that must be punished in a court and waging a collective vendetta by Kurdish and Shiite victims against the Sunni Arabs who were once their oppressors. There is still time to shift this exercise in victor's justice to a more constructive course because the trial will adjourn for several weeks after today's televised opening. For that to happen, the Iraqi lawyers and judges will have to stand up to intense and continuing pressures from their political masters for a choreographed proceeding that seems timed to gain short-term advantages at the expense of national healing and an airing of recent Iraqi history. When invading United States forces drove Mr. Hussein from power two and a half years ago, Americans navely expected rejoicing throughout Iraq and rapid efforts at democratic reconstruction. One main reason that did not happen, apart from the well-known mistakes by the American occupation authorities, was the arbitrary, violent and fragmented nature of the society left behind by the dictator, who had ruled through murder, fear and persecution. One of the best ways to repair such a damaged society is a systematic judicial investigation of the old regime's crimes. That should be followed by a scrupulously fair trial of those found personally accountable. In the case of Iraq, where legal training and appointments had been bent for decades to the political whims of the dictatorship, that should have called for enlisting help from international legal experts and using relevant precedents in international criminal law. The Bush administration and its Iraqi allies strongly opposed that step because it would have excluded the death penalty. Once the decision was made to rely on Iraqi lawyers and American advisers, they should have been well insulated from political pressures. Instead, the special tribunal organizing the trial has been subjected to constant manipulation and intimidation by Ahmad Chalabi, the ceaselessly conspiring migr politician who has made anti-Baathist vendettas his latest political platform. Finally, this prosecution would have been conducted differently if it were a serious attempt to uncover the murky lines of authority and responsibility within the Baathist regime and establish Mr. Hussein's clear personal responsibility for at least some of the roughly 300,000 murders committed in his name. It would have built up its case methodically, from the field operatives carrying out the killings to the officials who gave them their orders and on up the chain of command to Mr. Hussein himself. Instead, today's trial will begin with what prosecutors and politicians decided was the easiest case to prove, a mass execution in a Shiite town that followed a failed 1982 assassination attempt against Mr. Hussein. These killings ought to be prosecuted. But if the aim is to uncover the broader criminal conspiracy in order to punish the truly guilty and absolve those guilty only by association, other trials should have come first. What we have is a narrow sectarian government, still struggling to come up with a nationally inclusive constitution, that is conducting what looks like a show trial, borrowing noxious elements of Baathist law to speed the way toward an early and politically popular execution. (source: Editorial, New York Times) ************** Saddam Hussein trial begins, faces the death penalty Former Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein has gone on trial today on charges of crimes against humanity for the murder of 143 Shiite villagers in 1982. Saddam's lawyer said yesterday that he would ask for a trial adjournment of at least 3 months. The case, described as the 'trial of the century' by one Iraqi newspaper, is making history in the region as it marks the 1st time an Arab leader is being tried for crimes against his own people. Saddam and seven co-defendants face the death penalty if convicted in what is the first of what could be several cases against him for mass atrocities allegedly committed by his regime. A Kurd, Rizkar Mohammed Amin, will be the judge presiding over the trial. (source: Forbes News) ********************* Saddam Defiant as Trial Starts A defiant Saddam Hussein went on trial on Wednesday for crimes against humanity over the killing of more than 140 Shi'ites more than 2 decades ago. Saddam, grey-bearded, wearing a dark jacket over an open-necked shirt and carrying a copy of the Koran, refused to give his name and argued with the chief judge when proceedings began at about noon (0900 GMT) in Baghdad. Nearly two years after he was found hiding in a hole in the ground near where he was born, Saddam and seven other members of his now-defunct Baath Party are being tried for events stemming from a failed attempt on the former leader's life in 1982. He was the last to enter the marble-floored courtroom and asked the jailers escorting him to slow down as he walked to a chest-high white metal pen facing the 5-judge panel. Chief judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin, a Kurd, presided over the court from a dais looking down on the defendants. Bronze-colored scales of justice hung behind the judges. "This is the first session of case number one, the case of Dujail," Judge Amin told the court after the defendants sat. Asked his name by the judge, Saddam, 68, refused to respond and then challenged his questioner, demanding: "Who are you? What does this court want?" Prosecutors will try to show that Saddam, in retaliation for the botched assassination attempt, ordered his henchmen to hunt down, torture and kill scores of men from the town where the attack too place, that day and in the years that followed. The defense is expected to petition the judges for an adjournment saying it has not had enough time to prepare for the trial and arguing that the court, established during the U.S. occupation in 2003, is illegitimate. The hearing may last just hours, however, before the trial is adjourned, possibly for weeks or months. Saddam's lawyer, who said his client was in good spirits on the eve of the trial, has said he will seek a delay to allow more time to prepare. Iraq's government, led by long-time enemies of Saddam and looking for popularity ahead of elections in December, hopes the trial will boost the morale of Iraqis struggling against the hardships of the insurgency 2-1/2 years after the war began. Human rights groups have expressed unease about perceptions of ``victor's justice," warning that the trial must not only be fair, but be seen to be fair, and raising concerns about the legitimacy of a body set up during U.S. occupation. The eyes of the world are on the trial, being televised with a 20-minute delay, not just to capture the moment that Saddam stands in the dock, but to watch whether Iraq under its new leadership can fairly try its deposed ex-dictator. Security at the court-room was extraordinarily tight. DEATH PENALTY If found guilty, Saddam could face death by hanging and according to new statutes governing the tribunal, any sentence would have to be carried out within 30 days of all appeals being exhausted. That means Saddam could be executed before being tried for other crimes such as genocide. While the former president's day in court has been long awaited by millions of Iraqis and others, it may not last long. Sources close to the tribunal say the case may be quickly adjourned so the judges, partly trained in Britain over the past year, can study defense motions for a dismissal or delay. In a statement posted on the Internet on Tuesday, people calling themselves members of the Baath Party urged Saddam's followers to rise up and defy the court with gunfire. In Baghdad and areas to the west, mortar rounds landed near U.S. military bases, and in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, dozens of young men rallied and chanted in support of the ex-president. "The trial is unfair," said student Dawud Farham, aged 18. "They should put on trial those who are tearing apart Iraq and its people." "BRUTAL CRACKDOWN" Khalil al-Dulaimi, Saddam's chief lawyer, said on Tuesday that his client was calm and confident of his innocence. An Iraqi with little experience of arguing major cases, such as those involving alleged crimes against humanity, Dulaimi has said he intends to challenge the legitimacy of the court. The defense team has said he will present a dossier of 122 points designed to show that the court, set up by Americans, does not have jurisdiction over Saddam and is illegal. He will also ask for more time to study the more than 800 pages of evidence collected by investigators over the past 2 years and which the defense team received just 45 days ago. He may also argue that Saddam had presidential immunity. The charges stem from events that took place on July 8, 1982, when a group of young men linked to the Shi'ite Dawa Party attempted to assassinate Saddam as his armored motorcade passed through Dujail, a town about 60 km (35 miles) north of Baghdad. In retaliation for the botched attempt on his life, prosecutors will try to show that Saddam ordered his henchmen to hunt down, torture and kill scores of men from the town, not just immediately after that day, but in the years that followed. Women and children are also alleged to have been forcibly removed from Dujail, taken to Abu Ghraib prison and later sent to an internment camp in the desert near the border with Saudi Arabia where many ultimately "disappeared." Helicopters and tanks then demolished parts of the town, while Saddam's soldiers laid waste to rich farmland and fruit groves, destroying the people's homes and their livelihoods. (source: Reuters) ***************************** Death penalty breaks tradition----Also, it's an Iraqi trial The Iraqi Special Tribunal that will try Saddam Hussein beginning today is a work in progress as Iraq tries to build a democratic tradition while seeking to adhere to international norms of justice in dealing with allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. There will be some differences from recent international tribunals that have handled such cases, the most significant being that Hussein faces the death penalty as a possible punishment. Also, he is being tried by his own countrymen. Human rights advocates hope the course of justice for Hussein will generally follow the model of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who was flown to a U.N. war crimes court in the Netherlands in June 2001 to face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in the Balkans. Michael Scharf, a former State Department attorney who helped train Iraqi judges for Hussein's trial, said the Iraqi Special Tribunal's statute safeguards Hussein's rights and is founded in international law. He argues that letting Hussein take the stage like Milosevic would be a mistake. "It is not an international right to be able to defend yourself. Milosevic was erroneously given that opportunity and ended up resurrecting his reputation back home, restoring his legacy and making him look like a martyr," Scharf said in a phone interview from his office at the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Hussein's defense will look very similar to that of Milosevic, Scharf said, with his lawyers trying to turn the tables and incriminate the former dictator's Western enemies. Hussein's London-based attorney expects the court will not allow Hussein to conduct his own defense. Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the Iraqi tribunal risks jeopardizing its legitimacy if basic rights are not afforded Hussein. "We have real concerns about shortcomings in the law and procedures of the tribunal that raise questions about the fairness of the trial," Dicker said in a telephone interview from New York. Hussein's trial, he said, is a further development in the emergence of an international system of justice that began with the trials of German and Japanese leaders after World War II and continued with the creation of special courts to judge war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the 1990s. But the Hussein trial diverges from the rules of those courts, Dicker said. It lowers the bar for reaching a conviction so that "beyond a reasonable doubt" is no longer required. And the prosecution didn't give Hussein's lawyers adequate time to prepare, disclosing their evidence less than a month before the trial's start, he said. "For justice to be done, the trial has got to be fair," Dicker said. "If it is not fair it will simply be a political show trial." (source: Associated Press)
