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Was Justice Done in the Trial of Saddam Hussein?

Article Excerpt
The Trial of Saddam Hussein, by Abdul-Haq Al-Ani. Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2008, 421 pp. $21.95 ISBN 978-0932863-58-4 (paper)

The Trial of Saddam Hussein is an account by an Iraqi lawyer who was in some measure an insider in the judicial proceedings that led to the execution of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Although an opponent of Saddam Hussein while the latter was in power, Abdul-Haq Al-Ani, living abroad in the United Kingdom, participated, at the request of Saddam Hussein's daughter, in the early stages of the proceedings. He decided, as did some other lawyers who were involved at that stage, not to participate in defending Saddam Hussein before the Iraqi special tribunal, to demonstrate, as he says, "non-recognition" of the tribunal. "The Tribunal," he writes, "was destined from its inception to convict Saddam Hussein, which made it a political rather than a judicial trial."

Al-Ani sees the trial as having served a number of purposes. He says that Saddam Hussein had to be killed because "he alone had all the secrets." Another purpose was to serve as a "reminder to all Arab and Third World leaders that a similar fate awaits each and every one of them who dares to defy imperialist designs for the Arab and developing world." A third was "to vindicate an aggression which all...

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