Saddam, associates' trials set to open Oct. 19

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The trial of Iraq's former strongman Saddam Hussein and seven associates will start Oct. 19, the government announced Sunday. In northern Iraq, clashes were continuing in an ethnically mixed insurgent stronghold, medical workers said.\nThe announcement by government spokesman Laith Kubba confirmed unofficial reports that the former strongman and several of his closest aides will face a special tribunal immediately after the national referendum on Iraq's constitution Oct. 15.\nKubba said seven co--defendants from Saddam's regime would also face trial. They include: Barazan Ibrahim, intelligence chief at the time and Saddam's half brother; former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan; and Awad Hamed al--Bandar, at the time a Baath party official in Dujail, Kubba said.\nThe eight men will be charged with responsibility for the 1982 massacre of 143 Shiites in Dujail, a town north of Baghdad, after a failed assassination attempt. If found guilty, Saddam could receive the death penalty.\nU.S. occupation authorities scrapped the death penalty soon after the 2003 war, but the new Iraqi government later reinstated it so it would have the option of executing Saddam if he is convicted of crimes committed during his regime.\nSaddam is expected to face about a dozen trials for alleged crimes committed by his regime, including the gassing of Kurds in Halabja and the 1991 suppression of a Shiite uprising in the south.\n"The charges against Saddam are so many (and) regardless of how many years he is going to live, the charges and trials would not end," Kubba said.\n"We urge anybody who has documents related to Saddam trial to present them to the tribunal," Kubba said.\nSaddam's Iraqi lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, could not be reached for comment. A judge said it would be routine for al-Dulaimi to ask for an adjournment of the trial for procedural reasons.\nMeanwhile, fighting was continuing for a third day in Tal Afar, a town about 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, said Dr. Abdel al-Kamal from the local hospital.\nU.S. and Iraqi officials urged civilians to leave affected areas of the city, a sign that the Americans were preparing a major assault. U.S. forces crushed insurgents there last fall, leaving only about 500 American soldiers behind and handing over control to the Iraqis.\nBut Iraqi authorities lost control of the city, and insurgent ranks swelled. That forced the U.S. command to shift the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment from the Baghdad area to Tal Afar to restore order.\nOn Saturday, U.S. and Iraqi forces were firing at insurgents on the western side of the city, Iraqi officials said. Elsewhere, American and Iraqi forces were moving house--to--house, searching for weapons and arresting men capable of firing them, Iraqi authorities said.\nHospital officials said they were unsure of casualties because it was too dangerous for ambulances to reach the area. Officials said they hoped to get ambulances into the area Sunday.\nU.S. and Iraqi officials had hoped that a new constitution, finalized Aug. 28 after weeks of intense negotiations, would help bring Iraq's factions together and in time lure Sunni Arabs away from the Sunni-dominated insurgency.\nInstead, the bitter talks sharpened communal tensions, at a time when both Sunnis and Shiites accused extremists from the other community of killing their civilians. Discreet talks are under way to make changes in the language of the draft to ease Sunni Arab hostility to the document.\nHowever, both Sunni and Shiite community leaders are gearing up for a decisive political battle in the referendum. Sunni clerics are urging their followers to reject the charter while most of the Shiite clergy supports it.