Iran mulls bringing suit against `criminal` Saddam
IRNA
Tehran, Dec 15, IRNA -- Iran said Monday it will bring about a criminal suit at any international court against the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who started a destructive war against the Islamic Republic. "Foreign Ministry has embarked on necessary measures in this respect and we have already gathered necessary documents," Government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh said at a weekly news briefing. The official also demanded that the Iraqi dictator, who led a destructive war against the Islamic Republic between 1980 and 1988, be tried at an international court. "The foremost in Saddam`s trial are the people of Iraq, who were under the yoke of this criminal dictator for a long time," Ramezanzadeh said. This, however, does not negate the rights of others to take their suit to international courts of justice, he added. "We want that the crimes of Iraq`s dictator to be examined in a competent international court and he is put on trial" he said. "Those equipping the Iraqi dictator to impose three big crises on the region must be exposed in the court," the official said, recalling the Baath regime`s invasion of Iran, as well as its attack on Kuwait which entailed in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the second Persian Gulf war, which led to his fall. Ramezanzadeh said, "I hope Saddam`s fate will serve as a lesson for those who do not give in to the will of people." "The contemptible submission of Saddam indicated that whoever does not submit to the will of people, will be forced to succumb to foreign pressures," he added. Saddam and his henchmen have a notorious record for their crimes, including gassing Iranian forces during the 1980-1988 war as well as the Kurdish population, and brutally repressing Shi`ite and Kurdish uprisings in the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Tens of thousands of people also disappeared during his 24-year rule. The prominent member of the Iraqi Governing Council, Adnan Pachachi, said in Baghdad Sunday that a court will be set up to conduct the trial of the former dictator. DEMAND FOR SADDAM`S TRIAL ON IRANIANS TERRITORY Iranian Judiciary, however, went a step further by sending a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, demanding that the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein be tried on Iranian territory for his crimes during a destructive war. "The public opinion in Iran calls for the trial of Saddam Hussein at a court of justice in the Islamic Republic," the head of the judicial office, Mohammad Shiraj, said in a part of his letter, a copy of which was faxed to IRNA on Monday. Saddam and his henchmen have a notorious record for their crimes, including gassing Iranian forces with chemical weapons during the 1980-1988 war as well as attacking residential regions in air raids or with long-range missiles. "Your Excellency is sufficiently aware of the dimensions of oppression and crimes which the dictator of Baghdad has committed against the defenseless and oppressed Iraqi people and the Islamic Iran," the official said in another part of the letter. "... missile and ground attacks of Saddam`s forces on residential cities left many defenseless people without custodians or maimed. In their ground attacks on the southern and western Iran, the cities were pillaged and defenseless men and women were captured. "(Saddam Hussein) martyred or maimed prisoners in horrendous dungeons under torture typical of the Middle Ages and there are many children and women, whose custodians are still unaccounted for," the letter added. REPARATION DEMAND `DEPENDS ON FUTURE OF TIES` Ramezanzadeh said Iran`s reparations claims, which is put at hundreds of billion dollars because of the destructive war imposed by Iraq under Saddam, will depend on the future of the two neighbors` ties. "Naturally, the future of the two countries` ties will determine our mode of behavior, but the important and fundamental thing which we have always stressed on is the two nations have historically lived in coexistence," he said. BH/AH/210 End
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