Chief Judge in Hussein Trial Asks to Resign

Stung by criticism for tolerating Saddam Hussein’s courtroom tirades, Chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin has submitted his resignation from the tribunal that is trying the deposed Iraqi leader and seven co-defendants, two fellow judges said Saturday.

Iraq’s Cabinet has yet to act on the resignation letter, and Amin’s colleagues said they were trying to persuade him to withdraw it.

Amin’s departure from the bench would be a setback for the U.S.-supported effort to have the former officials tried by an independent Iraqi judiciary. The trial, which began in October in the midst of an armed insurgency, has already been hit by the killings of two defense lawyers. It is scheduled to resume Jan. 24 after a monthlong recess.

The 48-year-old Kurdish magistrate, whose close-cropped gray hair, aquiline features and dry wit have become familiar to millions of viewers of the internationally televised trial, has seemed unflappable. In private, however, he is angry over attacks from Iraqi and U.S. officials who complain he is too soft on Hussein, his colleagues say.

“He cannot bear any more of this criticism,” said one of the four other judges on the trial panel.

Hussein and his co-defendants are charged with the summary executions of more than 140 people from the predominantly Shiite village of Dujayl in collective punishment for an assassination attempt there against the dictator in 1982. The charge is the first of as many as a dozen the former president could face.

Through seven often chaotic trial sessions, Amin has tried to strike a balance between sternness and fairness. He sparred with the defendants when they evaded his questions and shut off their microphones when they interrupted him.

Just as often, he has allowed them to harangue the court in ways that appear calculated to stoke the Sunni Arab-led insurgency. Hussein has led the outbursts, claiming he’s still president of Iraq, insulting witnesses and portraying the judges as tools of an illegal U.S. occupation. At one session, he told the judges to “go to hell.”

Hussein’s diatribes have upset the Shiite Muslim-led government. At least one prominent Shiite official has asked U.S. Justice Department lawyers advising the court to demand that Amin crack down on the defendants. Others have led street demonstrations urging a harsh trial and swift verdict.

Amin told Reuters news agency in November that his family had become concerned for his safety, prompting him to hire two bodyguards.

Before meeting with the trial judges here last month, Sen. Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was “disappointed in the way the court has permitted Saddam to dominate the proceedings.”

One of the other trial judges and one of the three prosecuting judges on the case said Amin submitted his resignation to the court Jan. 8. Reached by telephone Saturday at his home in the northern city of Sulaymaniya, the chief judge declined to comment.

In the letter, Amin acknowledged “dissatisfaction” with his conduct of the trial but added that he would rather step down than submit to “public pressure” to act differently, the two colleagues said.

Both judges spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak for the court.

The trial judge said he and others on the panel had rallied around Amin, whom colleagues describe as having a fanatical dedication to judicial independence. “He is running the trial in an effective way,” the judge said. “We are trying to get him to change his mind.”

Iraq’s Cabinet received the letter last week but has not met since. If it accepted Amin’s resignation, the matter would go to President Jalal Talabani and his two vice presidents for a final decision.

Legally, the president could replace Amin on the court. But the chief judge’s departure under protest against government pressure could undermine the credibility of the trial as well as delay it again, say legal observers of the proceedings.

“It would be a huge setback for the process,” said Michael P. Scharf, a Case Western Reserve University legal scholar who helped train the Iraqi trial judges last year.

Amin’s resignation, Scharf said, could be a gamble to gain a vote of confidence from his fellow judges and the Cabinet. “If he wins, he would stay on the bench and reassert his authority to conduct the trial as he sees fit,” Scharf said. “He would get the critics off his back.”

Diane M. Amann, an international law specialist at UC Davis Law School, said Amin’s departure would “call into question the viability of these U.S.-backed efforts to try Hussein and his associates.” Because of the violence in Iraq and the legacy of dictatorial rule, “Judge Amin likely will not be the only jurist who finds the task of trying Hussein too difficult,” Amann said.

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Times staff writer Henry Weinstein in Los Angeles and special correspondents Salar Jaff and Zainab Hussein in Baghdad and Azad Siddiq in Sulaymaniya contributed to this report.