The trial of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein will be shown on live television, Iraq's top security adviser has announced. The trial will show the Arab and Muslim world "that this is going to be a fair, just trial with a defence counsel in there, with a proper prosecuting counsel as well there", Iraqi national security adviser Muwaffaq Rubaie told CNN. "And everybody will watch this trial live on television." An Iraqi tribunal filed the first charges last month against Saddam over the 1982 killing of 143 residents of the village of Dujail, northeast of Baghdad, where he had been the target of a failed assassination bid. No date for his trial has been set.
The announcement over his trial came ahead of a confirmation in Iraq's parliament that a constitutional committee would submit a draft document for debate by an August 15 deadline. A national conference of top political leaders will take place on Thursday to help iron out remaining differences on the constitutional draft. Unresolved issues include federalism and how it will work, and whether the Kurds, in their semi-autonomous area in the country's north, should be allowed a future vote on self-determination. There is also disagreement on the division of revenue between the federal government and the regions, on the status of the ethnically tense city of Kirkuk, on whether Kurdish and Arabic should be official languages and on the role of Islam in the constitution.