Background: The legal case against Saddam Hussein

Dec 30, 2006, 6:30 GMT

Baghdad - When Saddam Hussein first appeared in court in Baghdad in July 2004, he was told he faced seven preliminary charges relating to his crackdown on his opponents in Iraq and his invasion of Kuwait. He was later formally charged in relation to three of the charges, which formed the basis of two trials.

In the Dujail trial, which began in October 2004 and delivered its verdict on November 5 this year, Saddam and six co-defendants were found guilty of crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 Shia Muslims in the village of Dujail in 1982. The killings in the northern Iraqi village were in retaliation for an attempt against Saddam's life during a visit to the area earlier that year.

Saddam, Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, and Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother and former head of the intelligence service, received the death sentence in the case. Four co-defendants received jail terms and a seventh was acquitted because of a lack of evidence.

The Dujail case was the first to be prosecuted because its relatively narrow scope allowed for a fairly speedy trial of the former dictator.

In the larger Anfal case, which began in August this year, Saddam and six former aides were charged with the killing of up to 180,000 Kurds during Operation Anfal (Spoils) in northern Iraq in 1987-1988.

That campaign included the notorious Halabja massacre of thousands of Kurds in a chemical gas attack in August 1988.

Saddam and his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid (known as Chemical Ali) were charged with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The other defendants were charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Hearings in the Anfal case continued after the verdict in the Dujail case was announced in November, with the last session of the trial taking place on December 6.

Both the Anfal campaign and the Halabja massacre were among the seven preliminary charges listed at Saddam's first court appearance on July 1, 2004.

The other charges, which were initially expected to form the bases of subsequent trials included the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the crushing of the Kurdish and Shia rebellions in 1991 after the first Gulf War, the killing of thousands of political opponents over a 30- year period, the disappearance of 8,000 members of the Barzani Kurdish clan in 1983, and the execution of five Shiite religious leaders in 1974.