In the Film

Rizgar Amin
Chief Judge, Dujail Trial

Amin served as Chief Judge of the Dujail Trial from October 2005 to January 2006. Facing severe criticism from Iraqi politicians that he was too tolerant of Saddam’s outbursts, Judge Amin resigned from his post before the trial’s completion.

Amin graduated from Baghdad University Law School in 1980. He was a regional judge in Suleimaniya in Iraqi Kurdistan during Saddam’s regime, and in the mid-1990s he was made Chief Judge of Suleimaniya’s regional court.

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Eric Blinderman
U.S. Justice Department - RCLO

Blinderman was the Chief Legal Counsel & Associate Deputy to the Department of Justice’s Regime Crimes Liaison Office (RCLO) and served in Baghdad from March 2004 until December 2006. The Liaison Office was established to advise and assist the Iraqi High Tribunal in the trial.

Prior to his work with the Iraqi High Tribunal, Blinderman served as associate general counsel of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). He advised senior members of the United States, CPA, and Iraqi governments on matters of international law, commercial law reform, and international criminal law.

In May 2007, the Department of Justice presented Blinderman with a Special Commendation Award for his service in Iraq. He received his J.D. from Cornell Law School and was awarded a Masters in international law from Oxford University. Blinderman is now an attorney with Proskauer Rose, LLP. 

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John Burns
The New York Times

Burns covered the Iraq war and the trials of Saddam Hussein as Baghdad bureau chief for The New York Times from fall 2002, six months before the invasion, through late summer 2007.

The longest serving foreign correspondent in The New York Times history, he is the recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes, for his coverage of the Sarajevo conflict and the Taliban's rule of Afghanistan.

Presently, Burns is the London bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Ahmed Chalabi
De-Baathification Commission

As a boy, Chalabi left Iraq with his family in 1956 and spent most of his life in the United States and the United Kingdom.

In 1992, working with other Iraqi exiles, Chalabi founded the Iraqi National Congress (INC), which focused on trying to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein. He was a close advisor to the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush during the 1990 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The Coalition Provisional Authority appointed Chalabi to chair the De-Baathifcation Commission in 2003. This commission was created to prevent many former Baath party members—Saddam's former political party—from holding jobs in the new Iraqi government.

Chalabi received a B.S. from MIT and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Chicago.

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Ramsey Clark
Defense Attorney for Saddam Hussein

Clark, appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, served as the
United States Attorney General from 1967 to 1969. He is known for his commitment to civil rights and social justice.

In November 1990, as the United States prepared for the Gulf War, Clark consulted with Saddam Hussein in Iraq. And in 1991, he filed a complaint with the International War Crimes Tribunal, charging President George H.W. Bush with war crimes. He has also provided legal counsel and advice to accused war criminals Slobodan Milosevic, former president of Yugoslavia, and Radovan Karadzic.

After serving in the U.S. Marines, Clark earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1950.

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Saeed Al-Hammashi
Judge, Iraqi High Tribunal

Hammashi was one of the five original trial chamber judges in the Dujail trial.

After Chief Judge Rizgar Amin resigned, Hammashi was in line to replace him, but before he could assume his new post, the De-Baathification Commission accused him of being a Baathist, which led to his immediate transfer from the Dujail trial to another case. Seven months later, in August 2006, he was cleared of all charges.

Hammashi continues to work for the Iraqi High Tribunal. Prior to the U.S. invasion, he worked as a lawyer in Baghdad.

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Raid Juhi
Chief Investigative Judge, Iraqi High Tribunal

Juhi was the Chief Investigative Judge and spokesperson for the Iraqi High Tribunal from 2004 to 2007. Juhi conducted the July 1, 2004 arraignment of Saddam Hussein that was broadcast worldwide. He made seven broad charges against the former dictator, including suppressing Kurdish and Shiite uprisings in 1991, killing religious figures in 1974, and the Halabja poison gas attack in 1988. Judge Juhi’s team of investigators gathered all the evidence used in the Dujail trial.

In May 2007, Juhi came to the United States on a three-year fellowship to Cornell Law School, where he lectures and writes about his experiences and transitional justice initiatives.

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Greg Kehoe
U.S. Justice Department – RCLO

Kehoe served in Baghdad from March 2004 to March 2005 as Director of the Department of Justice’s Regime Crimes Liaison Office (RCLO), the agency established to advise and assist the Iraqi High Tribunal. Under his leadership, the RCLO built the courthouse and advised Judge Raid Juhi in his investigations.

Kehoe served previously as Trial Attorney for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague. Presently, Kehoe is representing accused war criminal General Ante Gotovina at the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague.

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Kanan Makiya
Iraq Memory Foundation

Makiya founded the Iraq Memory Foundation to gather, archive, and present evidence that documents decades of Saddam’s abuse of Iraqi citizens.

Makiya was born in Baghdad. He left Iraq to study architecture at MIT. In 1981, Makiya left his architecture practice to write a book about Iraq, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (1989), the first serious analysis of Saddam Hussein’s regime. He then wrote Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising and the Arab World (1993), which was awarded the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book on international relations.

He is a professor of Middle East Studies at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

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Jafar al-Mousawi
Chief Prosecutor, Dujail trial

Mousawi worked as a lawyer under Saddam’s regime. The Dujail trial was Mousawi’s first case as a prosecutor.

After the U.S. invasion, Mousawi was appointed to be associate director at the Ministerial Council and served in that capacity for nine months before his appointment as Chief Prosecutor.

Mousawi continues to work for the Iraqi High Tribunal. The year before the trial began Mousawi’s brother was killed in an insurgent attack.

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Gregg Nivala
U.S. Justice Department – RCLO

Nivala served in Baghdad from March 2004 until September 2005 as Deputy Director and then Director of the Department of Justice’s Regime Crimes Liaison Office (RCLO), the agency established to advise and assist the Iraqi High Tribunal. Nivala was the head of the RCLO when the De-Baathification Commission tried to remove Chief Investigative Judge Raid Juhi.

He worked previously as an assistant U.S. district attorney in Virginia.

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Najeeb al-Nuaimi
Defense Attorney for Saddam Hussein

Nuaimi, former Justice Minister of Qatar, served as a defense lawyer for Saddam Hussein in the Dujail and Anfal trials. He argued that the trial was illegitimate because the U.S.-led invasion was unlawful.

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Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi
Iraqi Journalist

Saiedi observed the Dujail and Anfal trials for The New York Times and for the International Center for Transitional Justice.

Born and raised in Baghdad, Saiedi was fourteen when his brother was kidnapped by Saddam Hussein’s secret police. After the invasion, Saiedi discovered his brother’s grave. He now studies human rights law and transitional justice in postwar and postauthoritatian societies. He has completed a year at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, and in Fall 2008 he began a Mason Fellowship at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

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Miranda Sissons
Trial Observer

Sissons is Senior Associate and Head of the Iraq Program at the International Center for Transitional Justice.

She was an independent trial observer for the Dujail trial and wrote several scholarly articles about the trial, including "Was the Dujail Trial Fair?" (Journal of International Criminal Justice, Oxford University Press, 2007).

A fluent Arabic speaker, Sissons is a specialist in human rights and international humanitarian law in the Middle East. She holds a B.A. from Melbourne University and an M.A. in international relations from Yale University, where she was a Fulbright Scholar.

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William Wiley
Iraqi High Tribunal Advisor, Defense

Wiley first arrived in Iraq in October 2005 with the United Nations Assistance Mission and assumed his position as an Advisor to the Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT) in April 2006.

He was assigned to work with the defense attorneys on the Saddam Hussein trials.

He previously worked with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the International Criminal Court, the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Section of the Department of Justice of Canada, and the Offices of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

Wiley left the Iraqi High Tribunal at the end of March 2008. He now resides in Brussels and is the Director of Tsamota Ltd., a consultancy that specializes in the delivery of projects for improving justice and security sectors of post-conflict and developing states.

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