The Saddam Hussein Comedy Cavalcade

The trial of Saddam Hussein will be shown on live television, Iraq's national security adviser said yesterday. The trial will show the Arab and Muslim world "that this is going to be a fair, just trial with a defence counsel in there, with a proper prosecuting counsel as well there," Iraqi national security adviser Muwaffaq Rubaie told reporters. "And everybody will watch this trial live on television." Earlier this month, an Iraqi tribunal filed the first charges against the deposed Iraqi leader over the 1982 killing of 143 residents of the village of Dujail, north-east of Baghdad, where he had been the target of a failed assassination attempt. No date for his trial has yet been set.