Saddam to face trial in a ('Hannibal Lecter-style') cage

[truthpusher]

http://au.news.yahoo.com/050228/2/t9p1.html

Saddam to face trial in a cage: report
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Monday February 28, 03:33 PM
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Fallen Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein will be tried in one of his palaces sitting inside a top security Hannibal Lectern-style cage, The Sun newspaper said.

It said the white reinforced metal cage will be similar to the one used to control the character played by Anthony Hopkins in the Silence of the Lambs movie of 1991.

Quoting an unidentified source, Britain's top-selling tabloid said that during the trial - to be held possibly next year - Saddam will be housed in an underground cell and will travel to and from the courtroom cage using a lift.

Saddam is facing charges of war crimes and genocide and will be tried before Iraqi judges in the palace inside Baghdad's Green Zone.

The courtroom is now being fitted out, The Sun said.

complete story: http://au.news.yahoo.com/050228/2/t9p1.html

[boneygrey]

1. Good n/t

[Bluebear]

4. Yeah, great. What better way to show the world we mean business.

Heck, maybe we can put a black hood over his head!

[boneygrey]

12. If he is tried and found guilty

then good riddance.

[Bluebear]

17. Right, we spent a lot of money and lives to get him!

[boneygrey]

21. Yep

And it is time to finish the job lest those lives spent be for naught.

[LynnTheDem]

25. Too late.

Those lives were spent for naught the day bush launched an illegal, immoral, unjust war of aggression, what the Nuremburg Tribunal called the Supreme Crime.

In other words, we did to Iraq what Hitler did to Poland; invaded & occupied a nationthat had not been doing anything to anyone.

BUSH should be in that cage.

[Bo]

35. I fully agree....

Bush should be on trial.

[NickB79]

26. Yep, because the moment Saddam is tried and convicted

All those pesky Saddam loyalists will just put down their weapons and turn into happy, US-flag-waving Iraqi patriots :eyes:

Nothing we do with Saddam will "finish" the job, as his life and death are now independent of the insurgency raging in Iraq. Those who are attacking and killing US forces and US-trained Iraqi forces are NOT fighting to put Saddam back in power. They are fighting to kick the US out of Iraq. We could drag Saddam through the streets naked behind horses until there's nothing left of him but bones and it will do absolutely nothing to finish the job. They will only lay down their arms when the US troops leave their country, and even then they will probably pick them back up again to fight a civil war amongst themselves shortly thereafter.

[leesa]

29. Found guilty of what? Exactly what are the charges against him?

Or don't we need any stinkin' charges?

[boneygrey]

52. Don't know the charges but I would think

genocide, rape, torture, mass murder,etc.

[Blue_Tires]

2. not that i was ever a fan of the character

but it believe it's spelled "Lecter"

[truthpusher]

6. you know I just changed it in the post title after looking it up to verify

the spelling. But it was the article that had it misspelled. I put it in quotes for that reason. I don't want half the posts to talk about the misspelling (especially late at night where we probably have a lot of Hannibal fans on right now), so I just went ahead and spelled it right.

[mike_c]

3. this to protect the spectators from his evil death glance?

What a travesty. This is justice, Amerikan style. Stick some old man in a cage because he might otherwise.... What? Face his accusors with dignity?

[Teaser]

5. He has no dignity.

If the Iraqis want to try this guy in a cage, great.

However, I have a strong feeling that this is designed in the West Wing of the White House to remind Americans of how Dear Leader defeated this evil, inhuman monster for the good of all humanity. *puke*.

[LiberalVoice]

10. Actually

In Egypt they used to have all the defendants in a cage during their hearings. I dunno if thats what they still do or even if Iraq ever did that...just sayin'

[daleo]

7. Sounds like a show trial.

He can't get up and bite people, so the only conceivable point is to dehumanize him. Court theatrics aren't necessary if the evidence against Hussein is sound. I wonder if they had help from Bushco in coming up with this twist? Almost certainly in my opinion.

[Orsino]

36. He is Saddam, the great and terrible...

...pay no attention to the imperialist war machine behind the curtain.

[libodem]

8. they couldn't find an appropriate 'hood'?

shackles are too messy. Surprised they haven't thought of duct tape for his mouth. And to think we once held his puppet strings. Funny how things turn about, when you can't get your own way, playing fair.

[Sandpiper]

9. Any doubts that this will be anything but an expensive lynching party?

As was mentioned earlier, the only reason for doing this is to dehumanize the accused.

I believe Saddam Hussein should answer for his crimes, but not in a Kangaroo court.

The Hague was established for a reason.

[pokercat999]

37. Exactly the Islamic Fundies will just use this

to drum up more recruits for the suicide detail. A real trial with a real jury would be good a trial at the Hague would be better.

[Why Syzygy]

11. Can we take this to mean

that "interrogations" haven't been going so well?

It was sick in _Silence of the Lambs_ (that WAS the point wasn't it?)... and _Con Air_.
It's sick in this instance as well.
But SICK is what we deal with, isn't it?

[chicagojoe]

13. What court will be trying him? Which government?

[truthpusher]

14. I missed a line in the article...

"Saddam is facing charges of war crimes and genocide and will be tried before Iraqi judges in the palace inside Baghdad's Green Zone."

I just added it back in.

[daleo]

18. Inside the Green Zone

That says a lot right there.

[KDLarsen]

23. And here's the ultimate problem...

"Saddam is facing charges of war crimes and genocide and will be tried before Iraqi judges in the palace inside Baghdad's Green Zone."

So the same people he brutalized are now going to convict him. It IS going to be a show trial. Judges from the UN should have been brought in or Saddam should have been brought out to the Hague.

[Igel]

40. They are the ones that should have first dibs on

trying him. Even the ICI charter says it only tries war criminals if a country has no provisions for a trial, or refuses to try him.

E. Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Russia all had their own methods (right or wrong, but their own) for dealing with their past. Germany should have been responsible for dealing with the Nazis. Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, and Kosovo should step up and deal with their own monsters.

[KDLarsen]

45. Well that's a major problem IMHO

A neutral part should always be brought in in these cases, otherwise you're always going to have a doubt over whether or not a case was fair. I mean, even the trial against the Lockerbie bombers was held in the Hague, because otherwise Libya wouldn't have handed them over.

[Igel]

54. I can understand that point of view.

Had Britain tried the Lockerbie defendents, it would have been (mis)interpreted as a Western country rendering judgment against a 3rd world/Muslim/Arab country--imperialistic. Britain had no issues of sovereignty or dignity at stake, nor were they engaged in reconciling themselves to their past. They also have a court-based/law-based conception of justice. And the transgression was international.

In E. Germany and Russia, one problem has been that the past hasn't been dealt with. In South Africa, they did, in a laudable way. Taking the last Afrikaner SA president to The Hague would have been a mistake in many ways.

Removing Saddam would send the opposite signals: Iraq can't be trusted, it's sovereignty and dignity would be dinged, it would be the former imperialistic West trying the Arab. It wouldn't allow for any sense of justice or resolution; and most of the abuses were internal (if it was primarily the Kuwait or Iran wars, I'd think differently).

Maybe Iraq can't be trusted. I guess we'll see.

[0007]

49. I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.

[Dogmudgeon]

15. They'll make Saddam look good

The whole Hannibal Lecter approach is going to end up making the court look like a joke and Saddam look like a martyred hero.

Why not just try him in a standard plexiglas "cage" without fanfare. He ought to be tried like the vulgar thug he is.

--p!

[mike_c]

19. your understanding of the principles of democratic justice...

...makes me hope you never sit on a jury judging me. Or anyone else for that matter. Wouldn't it make more sense to dispense with the tedious matter of having the trial altogether? If his guilt is not in question, why not simply shoot him in the head in a basement cell, and send his family a bill for the bullet?

[Dogmudgeon]

24. There's some confusion going on here ...

I think Saddam should have a fair trail. The way it's planned to be conducted, it will be a theatrical show trial that elevates the man to a kind of heroic status. The plexiglas cage I refer to is standard in situations where violence is possible in court.

Trying him like a vulgar thug does not mean giving him a desultory hearing before putting a slug in the base of his brain -- it means conducting a trial in a fair and impartial manner, but without paying perverse respects to the man's one-time stature in Iraq.

The Iraqis ought to see Saddam as just another fellow citizen, albeit one who is facing trial for having committed a large number of heinous crimes.

If I gave you the idea I meant something else, I erred. My intention, simply: No heroic martyrdom for Saddam Hussein.

--p!

[mike_c]

38. gotcha-- thanks for clarifying....

eom

[ikri]

44. Can't allow a fair trial

Its one of the reasons that the trial is being handled in Iraq in the first place.

Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be if he's kept the receipts for all those WMDs?

A trial outside Iraq would allow him to point out that the western world was OK with him using WMDs when we were selling them to him. Inside Iraq they can exact justice

[donheld]

16. Insanity

Nothing like a little court room theatre.

[Something of Reason]

20. Look at the Source

While I don't put much past the Bush admin, the source of this is dubious at best. The Sun is a British tabloid that commonly prints stories about alien invaders, goat-boys and other typical tabloid material.

I'd take this one with a grain of salt folks.

[TahitiNut]

22. Why bother with trials? Let's just lynch him!

Reading the above, it's clear that trials are unnecessary - as is that quaint notion called "presumption of innocence."

Why limit the restraints to a cage? He should be in a straitjacket and muzzled, with ankle cuffs and chains. Send the message loud and clear that this is a mad killer able to overwhelm platoons of armed guards and slaughter an entire courtroom before having his breakfast Wheaties.

Now we'll hear all the blood-lust rationalizations for proclaiming him guilty of any allegation whatsoever. :eyes:

[EFerrari]

27. Saddam has too much on the American Government for them

to allow him a fair let alone open trial. His whole career is linked to us. We put his party in power, armed him, supported him.

Do you think this guy is going to be allowed to testify?

[D-Notice]

31. That's exactly the reason he'll

die in "mysterious circumstances" or will "suicide" due to "depression" before he manages to get his say...

[EFerrari]

41. I've written to people about that probability. We might put the

idea in our back pockets.

So much harder to off a guy if people are looking out for his @ss.

[hector459]

28. Why? this will surely get him sympathy he doesn't deserve.

He was "caged" in his own country for over 12 years. The man is harmless now. WTF does the US operate with any sense at all? I know we will say that the Iraqis are in charge but who is really in charge under an occupation?

[anarchy1999]

30. Can we start building something similar here for Bush, Cheney, INC?

Seems appropriate to me.

[Laurab]

43. Seems appropriate to me, too

A war criminal is a war criminal. They may have propaganda'ed their wars better, but they're as guilty as he is.

[sellitman]

47. Lets start a building fund!

:thumbsup:

[Kinkistyle]

32. Is Saddam some sort of Super-Lethal Kung-Fu Killing Machine?

I thought he was an old dude with cancer?!? What, all of a sudden is an unstoppable, genius killer-cannibal ?

[DemsUnite]

33. The Hannibal Lectern stuff makes us look silly

As for the idea there are no charges, or the charges aren't legit, that's nonsense.

[LynnTheDem]

39. Saddam trial 'may lack evidence'

Iraqi legal experts are warning of the huge difficulties ahead in finding decisive evidence of Saddam Hussein's guilt in crimes committed by his regime in Iraq.

Much of the international community has been debating whether Saddam could face the death penalty for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

But the experts said at a Washington meeting organised by the American Enterprise Institute that any trial of Saddam could simply get bogged down over the lack of evidence.

"It is one thing to say what we all know about what Saddam did. But it's another to prove it in a court of law," warned Kanan Makiya, founder of the Iraq Memory Foundation, one of the groups helping to draw up a new Iraqi constitution.

Because "we don't have a smoking gun to convict Saddam. We will need witnesses, documents," he said.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/18/1071337066012.html


As for the "gassing the Kurds", his lawyer has those 5 US government reports, the UN report, and the 2 US Military reports all saying it was probably Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraq.

And apparently he even has witnesses who can prove it wasn't Iraq that did the gassing.

Will bush be handing over those missing 8000 pages of documents on WMD that implicate America?

[Canuckistanian]

34. What a show trial

Make Saddam look like a dangerous animal. It would validate their claims that Saddam was the Anti-Christ, bent on destroying Western Civilization.
He wouldn't have gotten and held on to power without the CIA, Reagan and Bush the Smarter.

[Delphinus]

42. Why?

Seriously, why? To punish him? Embarass him? Did they do this to the Nazi war criminals that were tried?

[Oreo]

46. The courtroom will be served fava beans and fine chianti

Imagine an all-out attack on the courtroom and Saddam escaping?

[arikara]

48. I wish it was Bush, Cheney and their gang of thugs

with black hoods over their heads up for trial in front of the world. They've done more damage than Saddam ever hoped to.

[PartyPooper]

50. Maybe, after he is "convicted" they can traipse him all around Amerika

like they did with King Kong in that early movie...drawing huge crowds and taking in ton$ of money for Bu$h's war machine aka the Republican Party.

:eyes:

[skippythwndrdog]

51. Maybe to protect him?

With the hundreds of thousands (millions?) dead because of him, maybe the cage is to keep people away from Saddam?

[Name removed]

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