Saddam Hussein trial
November 21st, 2006 by ashish
As can be expected, after the trial and the guilty judgement, there has been some criticism of the trial. However, after some dela, Human Rights Watch has come out with a judgement on the trial, declaring the trial to be fundamentally unfair and the death sentence undefensible.
This was to be expected, but just because it was expected does not mean that it is right. Human Rights watch expected an ideal trial. The report criticized the pressure on the trial process by public pronouncement by politicians, holding them detrimental to the defense. In addition, the judges were condemned as being biased and an inadequate defense was provided to the dictator.
Some of these issues are more of an opinion, in any society political leaders are inclined to make public pronouncements to satisfy the public including promising conviction of ex-dictators (who committed mass murder on a major scale). Saddam Husseing had a strong free speech right in the court (being curtailed only when he started screaming, something fairly normal); he had a strong legal presence, and from most press reports, the trial was fairly fair, giving him enough chance to defend himself. It was more probably that because of the enormity of the excesses carried through by him, he had no chance of avoiding conviction.
