No date set for Saddam trial

Iraq's government backed away yesterday from suggestions that Saddam Hussein would be tried within weeks, admitting it was up to an independent special tribunal to decide when he appears in court.

Suicide bombers struck across Iraq, with blasts near the northern city of Kirkuk killing at least 19 people and wounding dozens, the latest in a series of suicide attacks that have killed hundreds since late April. A mortar attack west of Baghdad killed three more Iraqis, the US military said.

Iraq's President and the Prime Minister's spokesman had said in the last week that Saddam could go on trial within two months, popular announcements apparently designed to show Iraqis that progress was being made in bringing him to justice.

But the Special Tribunal, set up in late 2003 to try senior members of the former regime, issued a statement saying no date had been set, and the Prime Minister's spokesman conceded yesterday that any decision was up to the tribunal.

"A fixed date has not been presented," Laith Kubba, spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, told reporters.

"(The Special Tribunal) assured me that they have a media official and they wish that information is given by them directly. I refer you to the spokesman for the tribunal."

A tribunal spokesman also denied a decision had been made to focus on just a dozen of the crimes of which Saddam is accused, as Mr Kubba said on Monday, in order to bring him to trial more quickly.

Since Saddam was taken into custody in December 2003, Iraqi authorities have been under growing pressure to bring him and his senior lieutenants to justice.

The government hopes any conviction - including the possibility of the death penalty - will dent the insurgency by convincing former regime loyalists that Saddam's days are over, so it is pushing for the earliest possible trial.

A high-profile conviction could also help build popular support for the government before a mid-December election.

"Many people lost fathers and sons and want to know where the justice is," Mr Kubba said yesterday. "There's popular pressure on us."

In the past, tribunal officials have indicated that Saddam's deputies will be brought to trial first and Saddam himself may not appear in court until 2006.