IRAQ - July 17 - First Formal Charges Against Saddam Hussain.

The country's special tribunal lays the first formal charges against Saddam Hussain for crimes committed during his rule, in preparation for a trial that could begin within days. The tribunal's chief investigative judge Raid Juhi, said the first charges against Hussain link him to atrocities against Shiite residents of Dujayl, a town north of Baghdad, where would-be assassins linked to Dawa, a Shiite Islamist movement, tried to kill the former president in July 1982. About 150 men from Dujayl were executed in the government's subsequent crackdown. News of the charges came after the bloodiest single insurgent strike since Iraq's elected government came into office three months ago. A suicide attack at a petrol station next to a Shiite mosque on July 16 night killed more than 70 people and wounded about 150. The blast in Musayib, a mixed Sunni-Shiite town south of Baghdad, has revived doubts about the effectiveness of government security forces. Some parliamentarians called for the return of popular militias which are meant to be dismantled to protect the Shiite population. On July 17, as residents cleared charred wreckage from the bomb scene where a petrol tanker caught fire, Khudayr Al Khuzai, a Shiite parliamentarian, told the National Assembly: The plans of the interior and defence ministries to impose security in Iraq have failed to stop the terrorists". Formed under US supervision, the tribunal to try Iraq's former regime leaders is a national, rather than international, tribunal, and can pass sentences for death by hanging or shooting. Some of Iraq's elected politicians have tried to push the tribunal to accelerate the justice process. Some officials say Hussain inspires anti-government insurgents as long as he is alive. But the tribunal's US advisers have insisted on due process, both as a way establish rule of law in Iraq and to eliminate any doubts about Hussain's guilt. The Dujayl case, one of a number being prepared, is viewed as minor compared to accusations of genocide and crimes against humanity. But investigators say the case is "relatively straightforward" and is a suitable test case for tribunal procedures. The other defendants are Barzan Al Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother and former head of Iraq's intelligence service; former vice-president Taha Yasin Ramadan; and former chief judge of Saddam's Revolutionary Court Awad Hamad al-Bander. Some human rights groups have criticised the tribunal as an illegal court set up under US occupation. The New York-based Human Rights Watch refused to share evidence amid concerns about death sentences and the lack of experience among Iraqi judges of charges such as genocide or crimes against humanity. Despite Juhi's announcement of an imminent trial date for Hussain, the tribunal's procedures are supposed to allow 45 days after each referral for defence lawyers to file pre-trial motions.