Saddam to be handed over to Iraqis today

BAGHDAD - Iraq's government will take over legal custody of Saddam Hussein and other top officials of the former regime today, but the US military will retain physical custody, Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi says.

Allawi told a news conference yesterday that Saddam would be formally charged on Thursday, although the trial would take months.

"This government has formally requested the transfer of the most notorious and high-profile detainees," Allawi said.

"Saddam Hussein, along with 11 other detainees, will be transferred to Iraqi legal authorities tomorrow and they will be charged by Iraqi prosecutors the following day."

Allawi said US-led forces would retain physical custody of Saddam and the 11 others, until Iraq's police force was capable of detaining them securely.

"These people ... will face justice before the special Iraqi court created in January to try members of the former regime for crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes," he said.

Saddam and other senior officials of the toppled Baath Party would have the right to appoint lawyers to defend them in open and fair trials, to prove that Iraq was committed to justice and the rule of law, Allawi said.

"We would like to show the world also that the Iraqi government means business," he said.

But Saddam would lose prisoner of war status, which affords him certain rights under international law, once he is charged by an Iraqi court, Justice Minister Malik al-Hassan said.

"We are not interested in the status that was afforded to Saddam when he was captured by the coalition forces but in the status under which we receive him," he said.

"He is charged with crimes committed in Iraq. He is considered a person charged with ordinary crimes, without prisoner status."

Hassan told the same news conference that Iraqi courts would also try fugitive Baathists such as Saddam's former lieutenant Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri in absentia, provided there was enough evidence.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq