Published: 05-Sep-2004; 23:50
By: ITN
Iraq's toppled leader Saddam Hussein and his top aides will go on trial within weeks, according to Iraqi Minister of State Kasim Daoud.
Mr Daoud insisted that the United States would not play a role in the trials. He said:
"We have barred the Iraqi government from playing a role, how can we allow a foreign faction to have a role in Saddam Hussein's trial?
"Saddam Hussein will be tried by the Iraqi judiciary and it will issue its just sentence against him."
In mid-August, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi urged an Iraqi court to speed up proceedings against Saddam. He said his US-backed government would do all it can to ensure the men get a fair trial.
Meanwhile confusion still surrounds whether key Saddam aide Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri has been taken into custody.
The US military in Iraq has insisted that it did not have Saddam Hussein's second-in-command, however the Iraqi leaders claimed that al-Douri had been captured after a fierce gun battle in northern Iraq.
Two Iraqi ministers said he was caught in a bloody raid in which 150 of his supporters tried to prevent his capture.
Iraqi Minister of State Wael Abdul al-Latif said it was "75 to 90 percent certain" the captured man was Ibrahim, adding that 70 of the former official's supporters were killed and 80 were captured when they tried to thwart his arrest.
He said Arabs from outside Iraq had been among those protecting Ibrahim, who was suffering from leukaemia.
Ibrahim has been the most senior figure from Saddam's former regime still at large and was described as the 'most wanted'.
There was a $10 million bounty on his head and in a deck of cards issued to US troops to help them identify fugitives he was the King of Clubs.
Ibrahim was Saddam's number two in the Revolutionary Command Council and held a senior post on a government committee in charge of northern Iraq when chemical weapons were used against the town of Halabja in 1988, killing thousands of Kurds.