Saddam verdict could make legal history-experts

BAGHDAD, Nov 4 (Reuters) ''If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out; if he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.'' Iraq's first contribution to legal history dates back nearly 4,000 years, to the Babylonian Hammurabi Code that found echoes in the biblical version ''an eye for an eye''. Tomorrow, Iraq will add another chapter, when Saddam Hussein hears his judges.

If convicted, the ousted president could be sentenced to hang for the killing of people from the town of Dujail. Legal experts say the verdict will add a new milestone in the development of international war crimes trials since Nazi leaders were judged at Nuremberg 60 years ago.

''Dujail is going to go down in history as a superbly important proceeding,'' said Michael Scharf, international law professor at Case Western Reserve University in the United States, who trained Iraqi judges and prosecutors for the case.

Most importantly, Scharf said, Dujail can set an important legal precedent, with consequences for the Bush administration, on where governments draw the line on the ''war on terror''.

Saddam has admitted ordering trials that led to execution orders for 148 Shi'ite Muslims in Dujail following an attempt on his life there in 1982 by underground Shi'ite guerrillas.

But he has said it was his legal right as a president fighting Iranian-backed ''terrorists'' at a time when Iraq was at war with Iran. Bush, Scharf noted, has used the same argument to justify wars and holding men without trial at Guantanamo Bay.

''This is an argument we have not heard since Nuremberg,'' he said, referring to trials against Nazi leaders after World War Two.

''We'll have to read the reasoning very carefully.'' Other legal experts said the case is so flawed that a verdict will amount to little more than victor's justice.

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