Saddam torture victim to attend trial

IRAQ: An honest man is arrested, tortured and imprisoned for many years. He escapes and after a long exile, returns home to see his tormentor punished.

Hussein Shahristani's life is a 21st-century version of Alexandre Dumas's great novel, The Count of Monte Cristo. Tomorrow Dr Shahristani has been given one of the rare, highly-prized seats at the opening session of Saddam Hussein's trial.

"They asked me to testify against him," Dr Shahristani says, but he refused. "At a personal level, I have forgotten and forgiven. I don't want him to be tried for what he has done to me personally." Dr Shahristani holds a doctorate in nuclear chemistry from the University of Toronto. He knew Saddam in the 1970s, when Saddam was vice-president of Iraq and head of the country's Atomic Energy Organisation, which Dr Shahristani worked for.

When Saddam seized power in 1979, he made Dr Shahristani his chief scientific adviser. Five months later, the secret police arrested Dr Shahristani in his office. His sin: refusing to accept the diversion of Iraq's nuclear power programme to military uses, and criticising the mass arrests and executions of his fellow Iraqi Shia after the Islamic revolution in Iran.

Dr Shahristani was tortured for 22 days, much of which he spent hanging from his hands, which were tied behind his back. He was beaten, and poked with electric cattle prods. But because Saddam wanted to preserve him for the nuclear programme, Dr Shahristani was spared the treatment endured by others: branding on the back and stomach with electric irons; holes drilled into the bones; parts of the body dissolved in sulphuric acid.

Barzan al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother, will also be in the dock tomorrow. The last time Dr Shahristani saw Barzan, after his arrest and torture, Barzan offered him freedom and vast rewards, if he would only give Saddam an atomic bomb "to reshape the map of the Middle East". Dr Shahristani refused, and spent 11 years in the hell of Abu Ghraib prison. He escaped in the chaos of the 1991 Gulf War, with the help of a Shia guard.

A just-published Human Rights Watch report has questioned the legality of Saddam's trial. "It is premature to pre-judge whether it's fair or not," Dr Shahristani says. "I am very happy that he has not been put on trial in the same way he put us on trial."

He admits that contrary to the Iraqi Special Tribunal's statutes, "there are a few judges who have been members of the Baath Party", but assures me they were only junior members.

"Saddam acted like a typical tyrant; vicious and confident when he is in power; weak and cowardly when he lost it," Dr Shahristani says. "When he was in power, he sent people to be executed at the drop of a hat, with anger and cold-bloodedness.

"When he was captured in a hole, he was demoralised and weak, and he didn't fire a single bullet. His own sons at least fought back before they were killed. At the trial, I expect he will regain some of his composure."

When the UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi wanted to appoint him prime minister of Iraq in June 2004, Dr Shahristani refused because it was not an elected position. And prior to that, "I never collaborated in any way with the [ former] CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) or [ the US administrator Paul] Bremer."

Instead, Dr Shahristani opened a humanitarian aid office in Kerbala, returning to Baghdad only last January when he was elected to the interim Iraqi parliament, of which he became deputy speaker. In his spare time, he campaigns with the London-based Pugwash Conference to eliminate weapons of mass destruction throughout the Middle East.

Dr Shahristani's office is in a turret stuck on to the Baghdad Convention Centre, inside the US-protected Green Zone.

"This was Saddam's bedroom," he laughs. "He had a garage underneath, and an office above. There's a private, secret elevator and staircase."

When I last met Dr Shahristani and his Canadian-born wife Bernice in Tehran eight years ago, they said they knew Saddam would be overthrown and they would return to Iraq. "I have total faith in God's justice and wisdom," Dr Shahristani says.

"I knew Saddam would have to answer for his deeds. Tyrants have to be brought to an end, as an example to others."

But the persecution of Iraqi Shia has not stopped. Since August 2003, thousands have been murdered in bombings, by "the same security officers and Republican Guard officers who carried out the mass executions - and (Abu Musab) al-Zarqawi's (the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq) people," says Dr Shahristani.

Dr Shahristani agrees that there has never before been such hatred between Iraqi Sunni and Shia. "After these attacks on civilian targets, especially the bombs in Kerbala during Ashura 18 months ago, and the bomb (that killed 114 labourers) in Kazimiya last month, the feeling among the Shia population is that the Sunnis have allowed this to happen, and have tolerated the presence of these terrorists and perhaps facilitated their movements," he explains.

Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraqi Shia, to whom Dr Shahristani is close, has forbidden retaliation.

"A year ago, during Ramadan, the terrorists started to stop Shia on the road to Najaf and Kerbala and behead them,"

Dr Shahristani says: "They beheaded two children called Ali and Fatima (typical Shia names), simply because their names were Ali and Fatima."

The children's tribe begged Ayatollah Sistani for his blessing to kill the murderers. "He told them: 'Iraq and Islam are holier than our blood. Even if an entire Shia village is wiped out, including my own family, and all beheaded, I forbid a single drop of blood to be spilt.'"

But there are signs that retaliation has started, including widespread reports of Shia commandos from the interior ministry arresting, torturing and murdering Sunni men.

"I hear reports that some units are misbehaving," Dr Shahristani admits.

"Three times, we have called the interior minister to parliament for questioning. I have his written orders to all soldiers to respect human rights. We try our best to make sure such violations do not happen. This is not to say they are not taking place."