War-crimes trials gear up in Iraq

A special courtroom had to be constructed. Evidence that had been previously documented had to be collated. Evidence seized by the US military had to be examined. Judges, lawyers, investigators, and document experts had to be vetted and trained. "They don't have a real history of doing this kind of thing," says the US official. "The concept of command responsibility is new to them."

But much progress has been made, the US official says. In addition to the legal training by the DOJ staff, led by Greg Kehoe who has had experience with the tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the judicial staff has traveled to London, Amsterdam, and Sicily for further training, including mock war-crimes trials.

The suspects are accused of crimes that span 30 years and a broad array of charges - from genocide against the Kurds in the north and the Shia in the south of Iraq, to human rights crimes against the countries of Kuwait and Iran. British advisers to the tribunal say it's important to try those accused for all the crimes at once.

"If you go back to the Nuremberg trials [post-World War II war crimes trials of German Nazis], and ask why they were important, it was not so much for the convictions, but for the fact that the whole story was told," says Charles Garraway, a visiting professor at the US Naval War College in Providence, R.I., who, as a British adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority, helped write the statute creating the Special Iraqi Tribunal.

But it is because the telling of the whole story is so crucial, as well as bringing the accused to justice, that several international law and human rights experts are worried about the viability of the tribunal. They cite a multitude of reasons - from the inclusion of the death penalty to the "opaqueness" of the procedures to due process guarantees. They also worry about compliance with the Geneva Conventions and how US involvement could affect perceptions in a region where trials like these have never been held.

Unlike the war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia, which was created by the international community, the US set up the Iraqi tribunal, with the help of Iraqi leaders. Moreover, the new Iraqi government is basically a transitional regime that will begin drafting a new constitution at about the same time these trials are held.

"The new judges are apparently being trained by professors from the US in how to act like a court," says Jordan Paust, an international law expert at the University of Houston. "That sends up a red flag at least in terms of whether this will function in a way that provides due process. [And] there's a technical legal problem in that there is not a new Iraqi regime - the present leaders are at best a transitional group under an occupation regime. It needs a constitution and then a lawfully elected government."

Page: 1 | 2