Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has the odds stacked against him entering his trial in Baghdad and it's not stretch to say the result can be predicted even before it opens.

As the courtroom drama unfolds, many of the rights normally granted a defendant compromised, including the right of employing lawyers of his own choosing.

In a court confrontation with Saddam on one side and his former political foes and the United States on the other, no unexpected judgment is likely, especially when the latter tightly controls the country's political and judicial instruments.

It is expected Saddam will have no effective or forceful alternative but to accept the charges listed by his enemies.

That possibility became more obvious when Saddam's Jordan-based defence team announced on Wednesday it was abandoning a planned visit to Baghdad in support of the deposed Iraqi president due to death threats.

Mohammad Rashdan, co-ordinator of a 21-strong team consisting mainly of Arab lawyers recruited by Saddam's wife, Sajida Khairallah, said one death threat after another caused them to abandon the planned trip to Baghdad.

He also said the defence team will only go to Baghdad if the United States and Iraqi officials give them access to their client and provide them with protection.

That means Saddam will probably lose an important opportunity of being defended by experienced foreign lawyers free of ties to the United States and the new Iraqi government.

To give Saddam full play in the courtroom will inevitably touch on two potentially embarrassing questions: Why did the US invade Iraq, and was Saddam's ouster legal?

US President George W. Bush and his follower British Prime Minister Tony Blair insist Saddam's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme and his links with terrorists were the fundamental reasons for the war, but thus far no evidence has been found to support those accusations.

Blair acknowledged on Tuesday that no such weapons have been found in Iraq and probably never will be.

In his first court appearance on July 1, Saddam openly claimed Bush, not himself, is "the real criminal."

Giving Saddam an open forum to defend his alleged crimes against humanity and genocide could backfire on the US.

The United States will not easily let that awkward situation happen.

Facing worldwide doubts about its excuses for waging the war, the White House will try to prove the legitimacy for ousting Saddam through listing the latter's numerous crimes in a court essentially controlled by the US itself.

But without a transparent, independent procedure and process, Saddam's trial runs the risk of being perceived as merely an empty exhibition of power politics by the conquerers over the conquered.

Source: China Daily