A shabby affair

Saddam Hussain ruled his country with chilling brutality, but the manner in which the American occupiers have conducted his trial through the special Iraqi High Tribunal, which sentenced him, along with two of his former aides, to death by hanging for the killing of 148 Shias in Dujail, is clearly a travesty of justice.
It was obvious right from the beginning of his trial on several charges of crimes against humanity that the intention was not to administer justice but to prove that one of the excuses the Bush administration used to invade and occupy Iraq, namely, regime change, had valid grounds.
In fact, many see the announcement of the sentence on Sunday, just two days before the mid-term US congressional elections, in which Iraq has emerged as a major issue, an attempt to make that point. Indeed, Saddam knew what was in store for him, and was prepared for it with a calm demeanor and a defiant message.
Just as the presiding judge started reading his verdict, Saddam responded with slogans that he knew would resonate in all the right places: "Long live Iraq! Long live the people! Long live the nation! Down with the traitors! Down with the invaders! Down with the agents!" Interestingly, despite a long commitment to the secular Baathist ideology, Saddam also repeatedly raised the religious slogan, Allah-ho-Akbar! and carried a copy of the Holy Quran in his hand, from which he had quoted in his previous court appearances.
Rights organizations and Saddam's own defence team had correctly argued from the start that the trial should be moved to an international forum to avoid the verdict getting tainted by domestic disputes and vendetta as well as security problems.
In the event, they were proved right when the first presiding judge stepped down under protest complaining of pressure exerted on him by the US-backed government to conduct the trial proceedings in a certain manner. Another judge was removed when he told Saddam that he was not a dictator.
Just days before the final verdict Prime Minister Nur-ul-Maliki had come out with the statement that the former president would get what he deserved, implying that he indeed was guilty of the charges against him and, therefore, deserved the death penalty.
Also, the trial's proceedings were severely damaged by the killing of three defence attorneys. All these happenings show that holding the proceedings within Iraq, under foreign occupation, was not in keeping with the demands of a fair trial.
Notably, when the trial was still at the preparatory stage, Human Watch Rights had raised its concern about the lack of equal rights for the defence and prosecution, and the requirement to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It now says the trial "was a failure to establish an indisputable record of the facts and a sense of responsibility for what happened."
Amnesty International, too, has called the trial "a shabby affair, marred by serious flaws that call into question the capacity of the tribunal, as currently established, to administer justice fairly in conformity with international standards."
These respected Western-based rights organisations, needless to say, have little sympathy for dictators; their criticism of the trial therefore is an unbiased view as convincing as it can be.
The people within Iraq have reacted to the death sentence in an expected manner, with the Shias and the Kurds celebrating and the Sunnis holding angry demonstrations. In the wider Arab world Saddam has managed to earn the respect of many for standing up to the US and staying firm in his defiance in the face of death.
The invasion and occupation of his country and now an unfair trial, have allowed him to make a transition, in the eyes of many of his fellow Arabs, and indeed Muslims in other countries, from a tyrant to a symbol of defiance against America's new imperialist campaign.