The announcement that Saddam Hussein and some of his top aides were handed over to Iraqi legal custody on Wednesday, only two days after the power handover to the interim Iraqi government, stirred varied reactions in Baghdad's streets.

Most of the people we met Wednesday want Saddam to be tried in an Iraqi court and by Iraqi judges.

The trial should be made public so that Saddam would get his just punishment for the crimes he had committed against the people of his country, they said.

"Saddam is a murderer and criminal that should be punished today, tomorrow, or a year later, and mass graves is the best witness for that," Kadhum Jabbar Al Shatab, a 43-year-old merchant, told Xinhua.

He asserted that the Iraqi people are the main judge and should have a chance to say their words, while expressing his hope that Saddam would be executed.

A 60-year-old Iraqi said Saddam's crimes are very obvious in all the regions of Iraq and that the sufferings of the Iraqi people nowadays are due to the wrong policies followed by Saddam.

Iraq used to be one of the richest countries in the world but his people are now poorer than that of many of the world's countries, he blamed.

An Iraqi woman said she wishes that Saddam would be sentenced to death for his crimes against the Iraqi people.

"Saddam should reveal and surrender all the treasures he stole from Iraqis and should also reveal all his connections and suspicious relations with many of the world countries, and then he should be executed publicly, so that people would make sure that he is dead," she claimed.

Malik Dohan Al Hassan, the Iraqi minister of justice, has announced that the trial of Saddam would be public and the public would be kept informed of it.

Saddam should be tried in an independent Iraqi court and by Iraqi judges that have no connection to any political factions, a man who identified himself as Abu Ahmed told Xinhua.

Saddam should be given a chance to defend himself and an attorney should be appointed according to legal rule "the accused is innocent until proven otherwise, " he commented.

But Youssif Qahtan, an employee at the Iraqi ministry of transport, said the trial of Saddam at this period could not be formal and just.

Those who will try him are the same whom Saddam used to hunt, and thus the judge is the enemy of the accused, he said.

"I don't like Saddam, but his trial should be just according to an Iraqi law put by Iraqi authorities elected by the Iraqi people," he argued.

He added that according to the old law cancelled by the occupying forces, Saddam would enjoy the immunity for being a president.

The interim government has no legitimacy because it was appointed by the occupying forces and no new law has been put in pratice, he said.

Meanwhile, there are some Iraqis who fear that clashes might erupted between the loyalists of Saddam and his victims after the sentence.

Saddam, who ruled Iraq for about 24 years, was toppled by the American forces in April last year. The American forces kept hunting for him until he was arrested last December near his hometown of Tikrit, 170 km north of Baghdad.

Source: Xinhua