Talabani: Saddam Likely to Face Trial Soon

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Tuesday in an interview with CNN that authorities expected to put Saddam Hussein on trial in the next two months.

Talabani said that "the court of Iraq will decide the future of Saddam Hussein" and that there was a strong public desire for him to be executed if convicted. CNN said Talabani had said the proceedings would start in the next two months.
"Saddam Hussein is a war criminal," Talabani said, noting that he had committed "crimes against Iraqi people" in Kurdistan as well as Shiite areas of southern Iraq and in Baghdad.

Noting that he was a lawyer, Talabani said in English that he would have to await the outcome of the trial process "but the Iraqi people from now are starting to ask for executing Saddam Hussein and for sentencing him for death."

Last week, Iraq's planning minister, Barham Salih, said the chief justice of the special tribunal in charge of prosecution in Baghdad had told him that "within the next few months Saddam Hussein could be brought before the court."

U.S. forces captured Saddam in December 2003 hiding in a concealed hole near his hometown of Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad.

He faces charges including killing rival politicians during his 30-year rule, gassing Kurds, invading Kuwait in 1990 and suppressing Kurdish and Shiite uprisings in 1991. He was arraigned in July without defense counsel and will be tried before a special Iraqi tribunal.