Saddam Hussein will be tried in absentia by the Iraqi...

Saddam Hussein will be tried in absentia by the Iraqi war crimes tribunal formally established in Baghdad, and could face the death penalty if found guilty of crimes against humanity, the Iraqi Governing Council said. Iraq's death penalty was suspended by General Tommy Franks, the American military commander, after the coalition took Iraq in April, but it remained on the statute books and it would be up to the new Iraqi provisional government to determine whether it should be reinstated. Judge Dara Nor al-Din, a council member who was in one of Saddam's jails until a general amnesty was granted by the dictator in October last year, said that the question of reactivating the death penalty remained open.