Prosecutors narrow focus on charges against Saddam

Baghdad, Iraq ? Lawyers with the Iraqi Special Tribunal likely will center their case against Saddam Hussein on 12 charges of crimes against humanity selected from up to 500 cases that they could bring against the deposed leader, an Iraqi government spokesman said Sunday.

The lawyers will be focusing on 12 charges as a matter of expediency, said Laith Kuba, an Iraqi government spokesman. Even before the capture of Saddam in December 2003, tribunal lawyers were gathering evidence against Saddam and other high-ranking Baath Party loyalists.

“We are sure that these 12 charges are enough to bring Saddam severe punishment,” Kuba said. “There is no use wasting time in dealing with them all.”

Deaths in Iraq

As of Sunday, at least 1,668 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,279 died as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department. The figures include four military civilians.

The AP count is one lower than the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Friday morning.

The British military has reported 89 deaths; Italy, 25; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Spain, 11; Bulgaria, 10; Slovakia, three; Estonia, Thailand and the Netherlands, two each; and Denmark, El Salvador, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Latvia one death each.

Since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 1,530 U.S. military members have died, according to AP’s count. That includes at least 1,170 deaths resulting from hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.

It’s the first time that the government has stated the exact number of charges that Saddam will face, but Kuba did not detail the charges Sunday. Kuba again stated the government’s intention to get the trial started in about two months, reiterating a statement Iraqi President Jalal Talabani made last week.

The progress of Saddam’s legal cases has been kept largely out of the spotlight since plans to try him for war crimes were announced by the Iraqi government last year.

In July, days after the interim Iraqi government took over control from the Coalition Provisional Authority, Saddam was brought before an Iraqi Special Tribunal judge for the first time and seven charges were laid out against him.

Among the crimes from his 24 years as Iraq’s president that were noted in that hearing were gassing Kurds in the northern city of Halabja, killing political opponents and ordering the invasion of Kuwait. Government officials are hoping that trying Saddam will inject confidence in the Iraqi people and deflate the insurgency.