- The US administration was accused of gross hypocrisy
yesterday after granting Saddam Hussein the legal rights that for more
than two years it has denied the 660 detainees held in Guantanamo Bay.
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- The treatment of Saddam as a prisoner of war under the
terms of the Geneva Conventions and the promises he will be given a fair
trial contrast sharply with the status of the "illegal combatants"
picked up by the coalition forces in the war against terror.
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- The decision has been made by the Pentagon irrespective
of whatever role Saddam may have had in orchestrating the resistance to
the occupation, including the suicide bombings which have claimed the life
of the UN representative Sergio Vieira di Mello and those of many Iraqi
civilians. Insurgents have also killed almost 200 US soldiers since major
combat ended in May.
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- While the Americans have consistently referred to the
deposed dictator as a sponsor of world terrorism and guilty of crimes against
humanity, the Guantanamo detainees still do not know the charges upon which
they are being held.
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- Peter Carter QC, chairman of the Bar's human rights committee,
said that the Americans and the Iraqi provisional council had guaranteed
Saddam access to a lawyer, the right to be tried within a reasonable period
and adequate facility to prepare his own defence. "As a prisoner of
war they can only interrogate him for the purposes of a specific crime.
I'm not sure that under international human rights laws they can even ask
him about the whereabouts of weapons of mass destruction," said Mr
Carter.
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- The category "illegal combatant" confers no
such rights on the Guantanamo Bay detainees. Louise Christian, a lawyer
representing some of the families of the detainees, said: "I think
it's appalling that someone like Saddam Hussein, who many people believe
has committed crimes against humanity, is enjoying a privileged status
in relation to people who are not in that category at all and have no advocates
to argue for them."
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- She added: "Human rights apply to everyone and I
think it's right that Saddam should be given the benefit of a fair trial.
But that right should also be afforded to those still being held in Guantanamo
Bay."
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- Instead of flying Saddam to Camp X-Ray, the American
authorities have wasted little time in in effect designating him a prisoner
of war. The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, confirmed yesterday
that Saddam was being accorded "the protections of prisoners of war".
He defended the Pentagon's release of a videotape of Saddam after his capture,
saying Iraqis needed to see proof he was "off the street, out of commission".
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- Mr Rumsfeld rejected charges that the videos breached
the Geneva Conventions, which bar PoWs from being displayed publicly as
objects of ridicule, saying that "by a reasonable definition of the
Geneva Convention", Saddam had not been treated in a demeaning fashion.
-
- Some US officials have suggested Saddam's PoW status
could yet be revoked. But international human rights lawyers say that is
now impossible. Yves Sandoz, an academic and a former senior legal adviser
at the International Committee of the Red Cross, said Saddam benefited
from protection under the Geneva Conventions as the head of his country's
army.
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- "It's very clear in the Geneva Conventions that
they apply to specific people, and to Saddam Hussein as supreme chief of
the armed forces, from the moment he is captured and until he is freed,"
said Mr Sandoz. "A prisoner of war can be sentenced for war crimes,
that's clear, and he can be prosecuted for crimes committed before the
conflict."
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- Lawyers said the prospect of a public trial could backfire
on the West if Saddam decides to call evidence of international compliance
in his bloody war with Iran. He might also employ the defence used by the
prominent Nazi Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg war crimes trial, when
Goering argued that it was not a crime to wage an aggressive war.
-
- Further questions are also being raised about the competence
of the Iraqis to conduct a fair trial in accordance with international
standards.
-
- Stephen Jakobi, the director of Fair Trials Abroad, said
the Iraqis were ill-prepared to hold a war crimes trial on the scale now
being proposed.
-
- Some Muslim lawyers questioned the legality of Saddam's
detention. Hussein Majali, president of the Jordanian Bar Association,
issued a statement yesterday making it clear that he considers the former
Iraqi president to have been unlawfully deposed in April, and unlawfully
captured by US forces over the weekend.
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- "The Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is the legitimate
president of Iraq because the [US-led] occupation does not have any legality,"
argued Mr Majali. "The Jordanian Bar Association considers President
Saddam Hussein as the head of the resistance to liberate a dear part of
our occupied Arab land."
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- He urged the world, and Arab leaders in particular, to
provide Saddam with "the legitimate protection he deserves as a leader
of a liberation movement against occupation".
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- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=473986
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