President Bush has said that the United States will only hand over Saddam Hussein for trial to the new Iraqi Government if “appropriate” security measures are taken.
Mr Bush appeared to be loggerheads with Iyad Allawi, the new Iraqi Prime Minister, over the handover.
Mr Allawi said yesterday that he was sure that the US would give Saddam to the new Iraqi Government before the return of sovereignty on June 30.
“The transfer of Saddam Hussein and the others [former leaders now in detention] will take place within two weeks,” Mr Allawi said in an interview yesterday on al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite television station.
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“Yes, Saddam and the others will be handed over to the Iraqi Government. Their trial will begin as soon as possible, God willing.”
However, speaking this afternoon, Mr Bush appeared to suggest the transfer might not happen before June 30.
“I just want to make sure that, when sovereignty is transferred, Saddam Hussein stays in jail,” Mr Bush said. “I’m confident that, when it’s all said and done, he will stay in jail. I just want to be assured.
“[What] we don’t want, and I know the Iraqi interim government doesn’t want, is there to be lax security, and for Saddam Hussein to somehow not stand trial for the horrendous murders and torture that he inflicted upon the Iraqi people.
“He’s a killer, he’s a thug, he needs to be brought to trial. We want to make sure that the transfer to a sovereign government is done in a timely way and in a secure way. That’s what we’re discussing,” he said.
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Saddam is likely to be tried for the persecution of Shiite Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as for war cmes against Kuwait during and after the August 1990 invasion, which triggered the first Gulf War.
Iran is also believed to be preparing a formal complaint against him for the torture of Iranian prisoners captured during the 1980-1988 war.
Saddam has been in American custody in an undisclosed location since he was dragged haggard and unkempt from a hiding hole on December 13. He is due to be tried with other members of his ousted regime by a special Iraqi tribunal.
Salem Chalabi, the head of Iraq’s special tribunal on war crimes, said the country will soon have a detention centre ready to hold Saddam and his henchmen.
Mr Chalabi said the Americans were prepared to hand over Saddam “provided we show arrest warrants based on reasonable grounds”.
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But Saddam’s leading lawyer said it was “totally out of the question for the prisoners to be handed over” to a government set up under military occupation.
“Allawi is not qualified to deal with this issue, because he is the product of the [US-led] aggression on Iraq, which is illegal ... and this government is also considered illegal,” Mohammad Rashdan said in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said that Britain would oppose the death penalty for Saddam, but he conceded that Britain’s objections are likely to be overruled by both the new Iraqi Government and America.
Speaking in the House of Commons, he said: “We were successful in the period of the Iraqi governing council in persuading them to suspend the death penalty.
“It is known that Iraqi ministers have said they will support the re-establishment of the death penalty from June 30.
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“It is also a fact that there are a number of countries around the world, including China and the United States, which ... operate the death penalty.
“But in respect of all those countries, not least and including Iraq, we shall make very strong representations about the need not to use the death penalty.”