Iraq Acts to Oust Hussein Trial Judge

Five days after the chief judge in the genocide trial of Saddam Hussein said the former president was “not a dictator,” the Iraqi government announced Tuesday that it would replace him.

A unanimous vote by Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s Cabinet on Tuesday endorsed President Jalal Talabani’s decision to end Judge Abdullah Amiri’s leadership of the tribunal. The decision must be reviewed by Iraq’s High Juridical Council, said government spokesman Ali Dabbagh, but few people believe Amiri will again preside over the tribunal.

“We feel that the judge, by giving the designation of ‘non-dictator’ to Saddam Hussein, is not neutral,” Dabbagh said. He cited the Iraqi Special Tribunal Rules of Procedure and Evidence, which demand that a judge withdraw “from any case in which his impartiality or independence may be reasonably doubted.”

The government did not identify a replacement.

Hussein and six codefendants, including his cousin Ali Hassan Majid, known as Chemical Ali, are accused of orchestrating a brutal seven-month military offensive in 1987 and 1988 that killed as many as 100,000 Kurds, many of them victims of heavy artillery and poison gas attacks.

Shiite Muslim and Kurdish political leaders applauded a change of jurist. “We are supporting the decision ... to change this judge,” said Shiite legislator Ridha Jawad Taqi. “We saw victims of dictatorship being humiliated during court proceedings.”

“He’s quite weak, and he allows Saddam to say anything he likes,” said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the national parliament. “And the judge is apparently tougher” on the witnesses.

U.S. legal experts, however, said they were concerned that the removal of Amiri, a 54-year-old Shiite Muslim, could further delay justice for victims of the so-called Anfal campaign and bring more discredit to Iraq’s beleaguered legal system.

“This appears to be improper interference in the independence of the tribunal and may greatly damage the court,” Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. The group was among the first to call for an international tribunal to try Hussein and Majid for the Anfal deaths.

Amiri’s transfer, Dicker wrote, “effectively sends a chilling message to all judges: Toe the line or risk removal.”

Michael P. Scharf, a law professor and war crimes tribunal expert at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, said Amiri’s dismissal could set a dangerous precedent for executive branch meddling in the judiciary.

“The idea was to create breathing space for the tribunal so that it would be independent from the government,” Scharf said.

News of Amiri’s imminent removal came shortly after the tribunal adjourned after nine days of wrenching testimony from Kurdish victims.

Ubaid Mahmoud Mohammed, 48, testified Tuesday that he passed out while attempting to shepherd his wife and six children through a poison cloud. He awoke alone in a Kurdish hospital. Returning to his home village, Mohammed said he found it looted, burned and bulldozed.

“I yelled for my wife and children. I yelled for my mother-in-law. I was screaming and looking for my children,” he testified. “After that I realized all my fears were true. My entire family was gone.”

Amiri’s dismissal stemmed from an exchange last week, after a Kurdish witness said he had once met with Hussein to ask about the fate of his wife and children, who had been missing since the Anfal campaign. Hussein stood up in court and said his meeting with a humble Kurd belied allegations that he was a “dictator.”

“You were not a dictator,” said Amiri, who also served as a judge during Hussein’s rule. Hussein seemed momentarily stunned as Amiri repeated, “You weren’t a dictator.”

solomon.moore@latimes.com