Saddam's trial being censored by American broadcaster

John Simpson, BBS World Affairs Editor, has no problem with the way Saddam's trial is going. The fact that his defense team has had two of their lawyers assassinated and the rest fear for their lives, and one of the judges was almost assassinated last week, is apparently business as usual in John's view. Can you imagine any other case in the world proceeding under those circumstances?

The court itself violates international law, according to Qatar's minister of justice between 1995 and 1997 who is now on Saddam's legal team. He goes on to say:

Geneva conventions define the occupation by "actual presence of soldiers", so when the situation in Iraq is presented as a restoration of sovereignty that does not mean Iraq enjoys sovereignty, because the international law depends on "action" not "saying".

The actual case on the ground is, there are 135,000 US soldiers in Iraq, in addition to several thousand others from different states.

Iraq now is administered by the occupying forces. Artificial elections do not give legitimacy, otherwise, the Vichy government in France would have enjoyed legitimacy.

The US and its allies criticised the elections and the political process under the German-appointed Vichy government. Moreover, the Vichy government prompted them to write the fourth Geneva convention, which bans the occupier from changing the laws of the occupied country.

I wonder why the US is committing a mistake that the US itself criticised in the past?

Furthermore, how can the Iraqi government claim they are independent while some days ago US Vice-President Dick Cheney made a visit to Iraq without even notifying the Iraqi government? How is that OK?   

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said he was called to the US embassy and was surprised to see Cheney sitting there. I do not think there is any kind of national sovereignty in Iraq nowadays.

Back to John Simpson. He also claims:

The American company in charge of broadcasting the proceedings frequently blanks out the sound of what Saddam and the others say, and sometimes cuts the vision as well.

Anyone know who this is and why they are censoring the footage? Would these be the times when Saddam's half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, said he was offered by the Americans a senior position in the Iraqi government in exchange for testifying against his brother?