Saddam On Trial Next Month?

[Annie]

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aNDfkETW28KM&refer=home

Hussein, 11 Other Iraqis to Be Tried Next Month, Allawi Says
Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and 11 other members of his ousted regime will face trial beginning next month, Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said.

``It's going to be a very transparent and very just trial,'' Allawi said in an interview with ABC News. ``But I don't think it's going to take a long time because the evidence against him is so much.'' ABC today released a transcript of the interview, to be aired tomorrow on ``This Week.''

Hussein, 67, faced an Iraqi judge in July at a war crimes tribunal in Baghdad in which seven preliminary charges were presented detailing allegations of atrocities during his 23-year dictatorship. These included suppressing Kurdish and Shiite Muslim uprisings in 1991, political killings and the gassing of the Kurds in 1988, and the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Allawi, 59, said the trial would open ``definitely in October,'' and Hussein might appear in November or December. Asked if Hussein's verdict might be death, Allawi said: ``Well, the death penalty has been restored in Iraq.''

Allawi rejected repeated suggestions by ABC interviewer George Stephanopoulos that insurgents in Iraq have gained strength. The insurgency is ``not getting stronger, it's getting more desperate,'' he said. ``We are squeezing out the insurgency...''