Missing Evidence Could Foil Saddam Prosecution, Claims Report

Crucial evidence for the forthcoming trials of Saddam Hussein and other senior Iraqi officials is likely to have been lost or seriously tainted because US-led forces have failed to safeguard official documents and the remains of victims in mass graves, the New York-based group, Human Rights Watch, says in a report out today.

In the weeks and months after the invasion, they failed to prevent people looting thousands of official documents, or to stop relatives of "disappeared" persons from digging up remains found in some mass gravesites, the report entitled Iraq: The State of the Evidence, states.

The invading forces subsequently failed to put in place the professional expertise and help necessary to ensure proper classification and exhumation procedure. As a result, it was very likely that key evidence had been lost or tainted.

In the case of mass graves, the failures had also frustrated the desire of families to know the fate of thousands of missing relatives who "disappeared" during Saddam Hussein's rule, the report adds.

The term "disappeared" refers to cases in which state agents took people into custody but do not acknowledge having held them. A widespread or systematic pattern of enforced "disappearances" constitutes a crime against humanity, Human Rights Watch said. Because the fate of the "disappeared" remains unknown, international law regards it as a continuing offence, exempt from any statute of limitations.

More than 250 mass graves have been identified in the past 18 months, some of which contain the remains of thousands of victims of Saddam Hussein's rule, the organisation says.

Key archival and forensic evidence is missing, the report says. "A key to the success of any trials will be the availability of solid documentary and forensic evidence," says the report.

"Witness testimonies are usually the ballast of a prosecutor's case involving mass murder. But such testimonies hold greatest weight if they are supported by physical and documentary evidence."

After the invasion, former Iraqi officials left behind volumes of official papers documenting criminal policies and practices. But neither these, nor relevant sites, were protected.

The report adds: "The findings are all the more disturbing against the backdrop of a tribunal established to bring justice for serious past crimes." Human Rights Watch says it is seriously concerned that the tribunal is fundamentally flawed and may be incapable of delivering justice.

"Given what's at stake here, the extent of this negligence is alarming," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "US and Iraqi authorities were aware that these documents and remains would be crucial to the prosecution of Saddam Hussein and other former officials, but they did little to safeguard them."

Human Rights Watch says Iraq's interim government should set up a joint Iraqi and international commission for missing persons and a similar body to oversee the handling of documents of the former government.

Human Rights Watch earlier this week criticised American and British troops for failing to protect weapons stores and prevent them getting into the hands of insurgents and terrorists.

Meanwhile, three headless bodies were found in central Baghdad yesterday, an Iraqi police source said. The unidentified bodies were found beneath a suspension bridge that leads across the Tigris river into the Green Zone, which is the seat of the Iraqi interim government and also houses the US and British embassies.

It is not known if the bodies were those of Iraqis or of any of the two dozen foreign hostages missing in Iraq.

Al-Jazeera television said yesterday that a militant group had beheaded three Iraqi national guards the militants accused of spying for US troops in Iraq.

A US embassy spokesman said he had no information about the three bodies found in Baghdad.