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Iraqi president not opposed to death penalty for Saddam

* Prime minister rules out transfer of Saddam’s trial to another country
* Government to step up security for defence lawyers

ROME: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said he was not opposed to the death for ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, currently on trial for crimes against humanity, but would not sign the decree to authorise it, in an interview with an Italian newspaper published Saturday.

“I will not sign, neither his sentence nor that of anybody else,” Talbani told the daily Il Corriere della Sera, before adding, “I didn’t say that I would be opposed to this sentence”.

“I will take a day off (the day a decree has to be signed). The two other vice presidents can sign, if they want to. We have already acted in this way more than a dozen times,” the Iraqi president said.

Opposed to the death penalty, Talbani had indicated at the beginning of the month that Saddam Hussein deserved to “die a hundred times”. The death penalty was reintroduced in Iraq on June 30, 2004 after being suspended in March 2003 by former US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari ruled out a transfer of Saddam Hussein’s trial to another country, rejecting calls from defence counsels who mooted the move after the murder of a lawyer.

“The process is a purely Iraqi affair, which should take place on the (Iraqi) territory and it is out of the question to transfer it anywhere else,” Jaafari told reporters Friday after breaking the Ramadan fast.

“The idea of such a transfer should not even enter our heads,” he said. Jaafari suggested that the murder of the lawyer of a co-defendant of Saddam Hussein could be aimed at getting the trial moved.

They “wanted perhaps, through this act, to achieve this objective,” he said.

The government promised Saturday to step up security for defence lawyers in Saddam Hussein’s trial after one was kidnapped and killed by men wearing security forces’ uniforms, but the attorneys rejected an offer of Iraqi guards, suspicious of Iraq’s Interior Ministry.

The slaying of Saadoun al-Janabi frightened the 12 remaining lawyers who appeared at the first session of Saddam’s trial on Wednesday representing the ousted dictator and seven top officials from his Baathist regime.

“We have decided to take some measures to protect the lawyers,” Deputy Interior Minister Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal told The Associated Press on Saturday, though he refused to give details.

But one of Saddam’s two lawyers said the entire defence on Friday night had rejected an offer of guards from the Iraqi Interior Ministry. He suggested they want protection by American forces.

Khamees Hamid al-Ubaidi pointed to frequent Sunni Arab accusations that Interior Ministry forces or Shiite militias linked to the government have carried out killings of Sunni Arabs.

“We refused because of our lack of trust in the Iraqi security agencies,” al-Ubaidi said. “Everyone knows there are elements in the Interior Ministry that assassinate Iraqis.”

He said the defence lawyers were talking with the Americans about protection and want US officials to carry out the investigation into al-Janabi’s slaying. agencies

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