Former US ambassador to Iraq says Saddam Hussein's trial was flawed

Shafaq News/ The trial of Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants had many violations and were "not perfect", former US ambassador to Iraq Robert Ford told Sputnik ahead of the 15th anniversary of Saddam's execution.

"The trial itself certainly had problems, no question. Some of the defense lawyers were assassinated, which was terrible. During the trial itself, sometimes the prosecution introduced evidence without allowing the defense to see it first, so that the defense was surprised by the new evidence," Ford recounted.

At the same time, the prosecution did find many documents signed by Saddam Hussein and other defendants, which directly implicated them in the charges of the Dujail massacres and killings, according to the former ambassador.

"So there was really no question that Saddam and the co-defendants were guilty of the crimes, but the process itself was certainly not perfect," Ford said.

Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was executed on December 30, 2006, on the night before the start of one of the most important Muslim holidays, Eid al-Adha.

Saddam Hussein managed to avoid capture for six months after the United States invaded Iraq under the pretext of searching for weapons of mass destruction in 2003. In December of that year, he was finally arrested near his hometown of Tikrit. The first hearing of the special tribunal took place in July 2004. The court found Hussein guilty on the charges and sentenced him to death by hanging on November 5, 2006.