Tribunal arranged to try Saddam

BAGHDAD — Iraqi leaders have set up a tribunal of judges and prosecutors to try ousted dictator Saddam Hussein and other members of his Ba’athist regime, a spokesman announced yesterday.

The announcement came as insurgents fired a barrage of mortar rounds at Baghdad’s largest prison, killing 22 inmates and wounding more than 90. Saddam’s whereabouts are secret, but some of his top aides are thought to be at the prison.

A U.S. general said the attack might have been an attempt to spark an uprising against the American guards.

Also yesterday, a U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in the northern city of Mosul, the 100th Americancombat death in April, the deadliest month since the U.S.-led invasion began in March 2003.

Salem Chalabi, a U.S.-educated lawyer and nephew of the head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), was appointed general director of the tribunal, which has a 2004-05 budget of $75 million, INC spokesman Entefadh Qanbar said.

The court and prosecutors will determine charges against Saddam and his former officials, Mr. Qanbar said. More judges will be hired for the tribunal.

The judges and prosecutors will undergo training in international law, war crimes and crimes against humanity, Mr. Qanbar said.

No date has been set for the trial of Saddam, who was captured by U.S. troops in December and since has been held by U.S. troops at an undisclosed location in or near Baghdad.

Most high-profile prisoners have been jailed at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison, where 25 of those wounded in yesterday’s mortar attack were seriously injured, said Col. Jill Morgenthaler, a U.S. military spokeswoman.

“This isn’t the first time that we have seen this kind of attack. We don’t know if they are trying to inspire an uprising or a prison break,” said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt.

In August, six security prisoners were killed in a mortar attack on the lockup, which was once Saddam’s most-notorious prison.

All of the casualties yesterday were security detainees, meaning that they were suspected of involvement in the anti-U.S. insurgency or of being part of Saddam’s ousted regime. The prison houses about 5,000 security prisoners.

Iraqi security forces, meanwhile, began moving back into the besieged city of Fallujah under an agreement between U.S. officials and local leaders aimed at ending hostilities. The accord calls on insurgents to hand in their weapons and allows civilians to return.

U.S. officials have warned that if insurgents do not surrender their weapons, Marines are prepared to storm the city.

“If the peaceful track does not play itself out … major hostilities will resume on short notice,” U.S. spokesman Dan Senor said.

Announcements on U.S. military-run radio in the city called on residents to turn in machine guns, grenade launchers, missiles and other heavy weapons to Iraqi security forces or at the mayor’s office.

Mr. Senor would not comment on whether any guerrillas had turned in weapons, but cautioned that “time is running out.”

Fallujah was largely peaceful yesterday, and Iraqi families lined up at a U.S. checkpoint hoping to return home.

The U.S. military agreed Monday to let 50 families a day back into the city, but the lines at the checkpoint were so long yesterday that about 150 people had to be turned away, said Capt. Ed Sullivan.

Gen. Kimmitt acknowledged that U.S. soldiers fatally shot two Iraqis working for the U.S.-funded Al Iraqiya television station a day earlier, but said the two had been filming a military checkpoint in the central city of Samarra and had failed to stop despite repeated warning shots.

Cameraman Jassem Kamel, who was wounded, said the U.S. soldiers opened fire after the group finished filming police and security posts and were driving to film the city’s spiral minaret.

“We were not filming. We were just driving in a normal car,” Mr. Kamel said.

The deaths raise to 26 the number of journalists and employees for news organizations killed in Iraq in the past year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Mr. Chalabi’s was selected to head the court that will try Saddam by a committee of the Iraqi Governing Council under a law passed earlier by the council and approved by top U.S. Administrator L. Paul Bremer.

Since Saddam’s regime fell, about 300,000 bodies were found buried in mass graves, victims of his regime’s persecution of political enemies, Kurds, Shi’ite Muslims and other groups, U.S. officials say.

Saddam’s military also used chemical weapons against troops and civilians during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s and during a Kurdish uprising.