Iraq: Saddam and other detained members of the deposed Iraqi regime will face trial within "a few weeks", Iraq's minister of state said yesterday.
"The trial of Saddam and the others on the blacklist will start within a few weeks ... before the end of this year, and before elections," Mr Qassim Dawoud said during a visit to Kuwait.
He also said his government and the US authorities would have no influence over the trial.
"We have deprived ourselves from having any influence on Saddam's trial," Mr Dawoud said. "How could we allow foreign entities to interfere in Saddam's trial?"
Since his capture last December, Saddam has been held in US detention at an undisclosed location as he awaits trial on charges of killing rivals, gassing Kurds, invading Kuwait and suppressing uprisings.
Kuwait is also preparing papers on war crimes that Saddam's occupying army is alleged to have committed after it invaded Kuwait in August 1990.
Iraqi forces are accused of killing some 1,000 Kuwaitis and other nationals, sabotaging Kuwait's oil wells, and looting the national archives. - (AP)