Saddam Facing New Charges

On top of the current trial for the murder of Shi'ites at Dujail, Saddam is going to be put on trial for the slaughter of 5,000+ Shi'ites at Halabja as part of the Anfal campaign.

The new case involves Saddam's role in Operation Anfal, a three-phase move against Kurds in northern Iraq in the late 1980s. Anfal included the March 16 gas attack on the village of Halabja in which 5,000 people, including women and children, died.

Human rights groups consider the Halabja attack one of the gravest atrocities allegedly committed by Saddam's regime.

"These people were subjected to forced displacement and illegal detentions," Juhi said. "They were placed in different detention centers. The villages were destroyed and burned. Homes and houses of worshippers and buildings of civilians were leveled without reason or a military requirement."

Others accused in the Anfal case include Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan Majid, or "Chemical Ali"; former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmad; former intelligence chief Saber Abdul Aziz al-Douri; former Republican Guard commander Hussein al-Tirkiti; former Nineveh provincial Gov. Taher Tafwiq al-Ani; and former top military commander Farhan Mutlaq al-Jubouri.

Saddam and seven others have been on trial since Oct. 19 for the deaths of Shiite Muslims following a 1982 assassination attempt against him in the town of Dujail. Iraqi authorities chose to try Saddam separately for various alleged crimes rather than lump all the cases together.

Hundreds of thousands of people were murdered during the Anfal campaign, some with the use of chemical weapons. Some observers thought that this would have been the first crime to be brought against Saddam. Instead, the Iraqis brought the charges stemming from the Dujail slaughter as their lead case. It turns out that this might have been a good move since the court has gotten on the job training on how to deal with outbursts from Saddam and his cohorts and have become increasingly efficient in their handling of the case.