Dangerous Mission: Young Iraqi Judge Arraigns Mr. Hussein
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- For weeks Raad Juhi, an Iraqi judge, had been working on an assignment so secret he didn't even tell his wife. She found out last Tuesday when she caught a glimpse of him on television presiding over the arraignment of Saddam Hussein.
"What do you think you're doing?" he says she asked when he got home that night.
The 33-year-old Mr. Juhi is one of a select group of Iraqi jurists chosen to investigate Mr. Hussein and the circle of his close associates, and then to oversee their trials. The task is expected to stretch out for years, requiring testimony from thousands of witnesses and scrutiny of millions of pages of evidence in the recovered records of Mr. Hussein's regime.
It's a hugely perilous assignment for the young judge. Mr. Juhi survived three assassination attempts while he was doing legal work for the occupation before the Hussein case. A bomb under his office window was defused before it could go off, a mortar round was fired into his home, and a grenade was thrown at his car. He now has four Iraqi bodyguards and deliberately keeps irregular office hours.
While U.S. and Iraqi government officials have discouraged publicizing his name, Arab media have published and broadcast it frequently. Mr. Juhi explicitly consented to being identified by name in this story. Though he has been seen in profile on TV, he ruled out the use of any image that could be used to identify him.
"Anyone who tells you 'I'm not afraid' is lying," says Mr. Juhi, dressed in a navy-blue suit and red tie in his office at a government building, where bodyguards mind the door. "I tell myself I have a moral responsibility to see justice implemented, but at the same time I can't forget that I have a family and have to be very cautious."
Mr. Juhi has played an important behind-the-scenes role in the occupation of Iraq for more than a year, as one of the young Iraqi professionals crucial to the new government's efforts to hold the country together. He investigated the assassination of a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. He was also the judge who issued an arrest warrant for firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. President Bush cited the indictment when he ordered a major offensive against Mr. Sadr and his militia several months ago. Mr. Juhi also sentenced a U.S.-appointed governor of Najaf to 14 years in prison on corruption charges last July.
Iraqi judge Raad Juhi in court at Camp Victory with Saddam Hussein.
"I'm building the new Iraq by finding justice and by holding everyone accountable," said Mr. Juhi. "No one is above the law, not me, not the clerics and not the former president."
Mr. Juhi grew up in a devout, middle-class Shiite Muslim home in Baghdad. His father, a government worker, wanted him to study law. When he graduated at the top of his high-school class, he landed a seat at Baghdad University's School of Law. Graduating with honors, he entered a specialized training school for judges. To gain admittance and have any chance of ultimately serving as a judge, he joined the ruling Baath party.
"I fell in love with law from the first year," says Mr. Juhi. "It possessed all the answers I was looking for on how to make a society work."
He says legal work was frustrating in a system where political connections held sway, corruption was common and an obsession with internal security was pervasive. Cases deemed sensitive were referred to special courts controlled directly by senior members of the regime.
Mr. Juhi's first job was as an investigative magistrate in a criminal court in a crime-ridden Shiite Muslim slum near Baghdad. He investigated crimes and referred them to court for a trial. He went on to serve in several other district courts in Baghdad.
After the U.S. invasion, the U.S.-led occupation government was able to get some parts of the Iraq judicial system running. Mr. Juhi was asked to report for work in Najaf, the center of religious power for the majority Shiite Muslim population in Iraq. As he saw it, he wasn't working for the Americans, but rather for a new Iraq.
In Najaf, the family of a prominent Iraqi cleric who had been slain in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion asked the court to investigate. The case of who killed Seyed Majid al-Khoei and six of his aides became a turning point in the occupation. It was Mr. Juhi's conclusion that the killers were linked to a chief opponent of the occupation, the cleric Mr. Sadr.
Concerned that Mr. Sadr's movements were disrupting the occupation several months ago, U.S. authorities earlier this year unsealed an arrest warrant Mr. Juhi signed in August. President Bush then approved a major offensive against the cleric's armed militia, citing Mr. Juhi's warrant as justification. It did not identify Mr. Juhi by name.
Mr. Juhi moved in August to work in the newly established Central Criminal Court of Iraq. Soon afterward, he was one of a handful of judges chosen to review and investigate the evidence against Mr. Hussein and his top officials for a future war crimes trial. The tribunal to try Mr. Hussein and other senior members of the regime was established in December and has examined allegations against the previous regime going back as far as 1968.
Salem Chalabi, a returned Iraqi exile who oversaw the formation of the Iraq Crime Tribunal, said Mr. Juhi caught his eye because of his handling of high-profile cases in Najaf. "He is one of the most thorough and hard-working judges we have," says Mr. Chalabi.
The investigative judges are being trained by a team of legal advisers from the U.S. Just how the proceedings will unfold, and how long they will last, are unclear at this point. For now, the judges will function mostly as investigators, deposing witnesses and gathering and organizing millions of pages of documents for presentation in court.
Mr. Juhi knows that successfully trying Mr. Hussein while the country is under the military protection of the U.S. will be a difficult balancing act. Mr. Juhi says he slept only a few hours each night as he prepared for the hearing. He searched the Internet several hours each day, studying human-rights laws, laws pertaining to genocide and precedents for war-crimes trials. He also traveled to Washington with a delegation from Iraq's foreign and defense ministries for a training course in public policy.
The day Mr. Hussein and his officials appeared in court, Mr. Juhi behaved as if it were an ordinary day as his wife and three sons sent him off to work. He told them nothing of the hearing.
He brought his personal copy of the Quran to court. He placed it on his desk to symbolize his Shiite Muslim faith. It had been blessed by an imam to give him spiritual strength and to protect him against harm.
On the way to Camp Victory, the American military base where the court had been set up, Mr. Juhi reminded himself of what he considered the most important lesson during his judicial training. "I kept telling myself that when Saddam comes into the room I have to separate the person in me from the judge," he says. "I have to remember I am a judge and he is a criminal, nothing more."
伊拉克年轻法官冒死主审萨达姆
几周来，伊拉克法官拉德?尤希(Raad Juhi)一直都在忙著一件事，但这件事是如此特殊，他甚至连妻子都没有告诉。7月6日，尤希太太突然从电视上看到丈夫在主持萨达姆?侯赛因(Saddam Hussein)的庭审。
尤金回忆说，当晚他回到家时妻子问他，“你知道你在做什么吗？“
33岁的尤希是负责调查萨达姆及其心腹的犯罪行为，并进行庭审的法官小组成员之一。这项任务预计将持续数年，需要有数千位证人的证词，并需对萨达姆政府的大量文件进行审查以寻找证据。
对于这位年轻的法官，这是一项极其危险的任务。在接手萨达姆的案子之前，尤希曾由于为美英联军提供法律服务而遇到过3次袭击。他办公室窗户下的炸弹在爆炸前被拆除了雷管，曾有一发迫击炮射入他的办公室，并有一枚手榴弹被扔进他的车里。尤希现在有4名伊拉克保镖，并特意打乱工作时间。
虽然美国和伊拉克政府官员不鼓励公开尤希的名字，但阿拉伯媒体频繁地在报导中提到他的名字。尤希明确表示同意在本文中使用他的名字，但不同意发表任何可能被用于指认他的图片，虽然他曾以侧面出现在电视中。
“如果有人告诉你，我不害怕，那是胡扯，”尤希表示。说这话的时候，穿著海军蓝西装、系著红领带的他正坐在政府大楼的办公室里，保镖们时刻留意著门口的动静。“我告诉自己，伸张正义是我的道德义务，但我不能忘记我有一个家庭，我必须非常谨慎。”
一年多来，尤希在美英联军控制下的伊拉克扮演了一个重要的幕后角色。作为一名年轻的伊拉克专业人士，他是新政府重建国家过程中不可缺少的人才。他曾参与伊拉克临时管理委员会成员被谋杀的案件调查，也曾签发煽动叛乱的宗教领袖萨德尔(Moqtada al-Sadr)的逮捕令。美国总统布什(Bush)几个月前批准对萨德尔及其游击组织发动大进攻时，引述了尤希的逮捕令，但没有明确指出尤希的名字。去年7月，尤希还判决了美国任命的纳杰夫临时市长14年监禁，罪名是腐败。
“通过伸张正义和将罪犯绳之以法，我正在参与建设一个新的伊拉克，”尤希表示，“没有人能凌驾于法律之上，包括我，包括神职人员，包括前总统。”
尤希出生于巴格达一个虔诚的中产阶级什叶派穆斯林家庭。身为公务员的父亲希望他研习法律。尤希高中毕业后，进入了巴格达大学法学院。以优异成绩毕业后，他进入了一所法官专业培训学校。为了能获得法官专业培训学校的入学资格并最终当上法官，他加入了执政党阿拉伯复兴社会党。
“我第一年就迷恋上了法律，”尤希表示，“它可以对如何让社会运行的所有问题作出解答。”
但他也承认，在一个政治呼风唤雨、腐败司空见惯、安全感普遍缺乏的社会体系中，从事法律工作是令人沮丧的。敏感案件均交由特别法庭审理，这些法庭往往由政权集团中的高层人物直接掌控。
尤希的第一个工作是在巴格达附近一个犯罪猖獗的什叶派穆斯林贫民区的刑事法庭中担任地方调查法官。他负责案件的调查，然后将案件交由法院审理。之后，他在巴格达不同的地区法院任过职。
在美国入侵后，联军政府希望让伊拉克部分地区的司法系统维持运转。尤希被派往纳杰夫工作，这是在伊拉克占多数的什叶派穆斯林的宗教胜地。尤希认为，他并不是在为美国人服务，而是为了建设一个新的伊拉克。
在纳杰夫，伊拉克著名宗教人士马吉德?阿尔-霍伊(Seyed Majid al-Khoei)的家庭要求法院为阿尔-霍伊在美军入侵后的遇害进行调查。这宗涉及谁杀了阿尔-霍伊及其6个助手的案子成了联军进驻后的一个转折点。尤希得出结论，阿尔-霍伊遇害与反美的主要宗教领袖萨德尔有关。
考虑到几个月前萨德尔的活动对联军统治下的地区构成了威胁，美国当局于今年早些时候发布了尤希去年8月签署的通缉令。之后，美国总统布什批准对萨德尔的武装游击队伍展开大进攻。
去年8月，尤希开始为新成立的伊拉克中央刑事法庭(Central Criminal Court of Iraq)工作。之后不久，他和其他几个法官获得了调查萨达姆及其高层官员战争罪调查的任务。审判萨达姆及其他高层官员的法庭于去年12月成立，他们对萨达姆政府的涉嫌指控进行了研究，时间最早可追溯至1968年。
负责监督伊拉克刑事法庭(Iraq Crime Tribunal)成立的Salem Chalabi称，尤希以其在纳杰夫对媒体高度关注案件的出色处理吸引了他的视线，“他是最严密和最努力的法官之一。”
这些调查法官目前正在接受来自美国的一队法律顾问的培训。审判将怎样发展，将持续多长时间，目前都不清楚。就目前而言，这些法官将主要行使调查的职责，向证人取证和整理数百万页的文件以供法庭出示。
尤希知道，当伊拉克仍处于美国军事保护之下时，要成功审判萨达姆将是很难平衡一件事。尤希表示，为了准备庭审资料，他每晚只睡几个小时。他每天都要花很多时间在互联网上查找资料，研究人权法律、与种族屠杀相关的法律以及战争罪审判的先例。他还与来自伊拉克外交部和国防部的一个代表团一起前往美国参加公共政策的一个培训项目。
萨达姆及其下属出现在法庭的当天，尤希在上班前与妻子和3个儿子告别时，表现并无异常。他没有透露任何有关庭审的事。
尤希带了一本自己的《古兰经》来到法庭，将其放在自己的桌上以显示其什叶派穆斯林的信仰。这本《古兰经》曾得到过阿訇的祷告祝福，能给予他精神力量，并保护他免受伤害。
在前往法庭设立地点──美军基地胜利营(Camp Victory)的路上，尤希回顾了在参加法官培训时他所认为最重要的一课。“我不断告诉自己，当萨达姆进入法庭时，我必须记住我是一个法官，他是一个罪犯，仅此而已。”
