Saddam Hussein has been accused of committing some monstrous crimes.

There is, for example, the use of chemical weapons on his own citizens, Iraqi Kurds, in 1988, during which an estimated 5,000 people were killed. There are also the brutal suppressions of uprisings in Iraq's northern and southern regions in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War.

But, when the deposed Iraqi leader goes on trial on October 19, it will be for an alleged crime that few in the West are familiar with.

The trial will focus on the executions of about 140 Shiites in Dujail, a small town north of Baghdad.

In 1982, there was an failed assassination attempt on Saddam as his motorcade drove through the town. In response, the Saddam regime had Dujail razed and its citizens interrogated and imprisoned.

Seven others from Saddam's regime will also stand trial, including: Barazan Ibrahim, Iraq's intelligence chief at the time and Saddam's half brother; former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan; and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, a Baath party official in Dujail at the time.

If convicted, Saddam and his co-defendants could be sentenced to death.

Dujail first of a dozen trials

Captured in December 2003 -- eight months after the invasion and overthow of his regime by U.S. and British forces -- Saddam has been held in custody by the U.S. at an undisclosed location in Baghdad.

The trial will be the first in what is expected to be more than a dozen trials for alleged crimes committed by Saddam and other officials in his regime.

The Iraqi Special Tribunal -- the body responsible for trying the cases -- has apparently chosen the Dujail massacre as the first matter to be tried because it is well-documented and more likely to result in a conviction than the other crimes that Saddam is accused of committing.

The tribunal reviewed more than two million documents and interviewed 7,000 witnesses before it laid the charges.

Other alleged crimes that the tribunal will prosecute include:

• the invasion and occupation of Kuwait
• the suppression of the uprisings in northern and southern Iraq in the wake of the Gulf War
• the use of chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds in 1988
• the deportation of thousands of Fayli Kurds to Iran
• the executions of religious and political leaders

No UN Tribunal

Unlike trials over massacres and war crimes in Rwanda and Yugoslavia, which were tried by United Nations-appointed tribunals, Saddam will be prosecuted and judged largely by Iraqi nationals in Iraq.

Initially created in December, 2003, by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, the tribunal's mandate is to try Iraqi nationals and residents who have been accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and other serious crimes committed between 1968 -- when the Baath regime came to power -- and 2003.

The statute under which the tribunal operates calls for trial chambers with five judges each, 20 investigative judges and 20 prosecutors, and an appeals chamber with nine judges.

The way the tribunal works might not be familiar to Canadians who are used to the British-based common law tradition in which a judge plays no role in laying charges.

The Iraqi tribunal operates under the civil law tradition, similar to that of Continental Europe, in which an investigative judge gathers evidence and lays an indictment. The Chief Investigative Judge must then uphold the indictment for the accused to be brought to trial. A prosecutor will then present the case against the accused at trial.

Questions of fairness

The statute that created the tribunal enshrines the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair, impartial and public hearing, and the right of an accused to choose and communicate freely with their lawyer.

Nevertheless, many international observers are far from convinced that Saddam can get a fair trial in Iraq. Members of his former legal team have called for his trial to be moved to either an international tribunal or out of Iraq, arguing that neither they nor their client are safe in Iraq.

They have also complained that in the almost two years since their client's arrest, they have not had adequate access to their client.

At present, Saddam has only one lawyer, Iraqi Khalil Dulaimi. During the summer, the former Iraqi leader's massive legal team, which numbered more than 1,500, was fired by his family, who said the team had no unified strategy. A new defence team comprised of international and Iraqi lawyers is expected to be named soon.

In early September, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told Iraqi television that an investigating judge had told him that "he was able to extract confessions from Saddam's mouth'' about crimes "such as executions'' that the ousted leader had personally ordered.

However, he did not specify whether the "confessions" involved the Dujail case.