Have you heard about the 'legal' Green Zone in Iraq?

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/world/middleeast/30military.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

In Baghdad, Justice Behind the Barricades
Benjamin Lowy for The New York Times

By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: July 30, 2007

BAGHDAD, July 26 — In a city plagued by suicide bombers and renegade militias, the Americans and the Iraqi government have turned to an unusual measure to help implant the rule of law: they have erected a legal Green Zone, a heavily fortified compound to shelter judges and their families and secure the trials of some of the most dangerous suspects.

The Rule of Law Complex, as it is known by the Iraqi government, is in the Baghdad neighborhood of Rusafa and held its first trial last month.

For Iraqi officials, working at the compound is so fraught with risk that it often requires separating themselves and their families from life outside the complex’s gates.

“Our work is really a challenge,” said a judge who lives in the compound with his wife and children and whose identity is protected by the court’s security procedures. “I have not seen Baghdad for three months.”

The court’s first defendant was a Syrian militant, Ramsi Ahmed Ismael Muhammed, known by the nom de guerre Abu Qatada. Tried on charges of kidnapping, killing his hostages and carrying out other bloody attacks, he was convicted in the complex’s high-surveillance courtroom and sentenced to death.

The utility of the fortified complex, however, depends on more than a single high-profile case. Ultimately, it will depend on the Iraqis’ ability to expand their capacity to try cases at the complex as well as their track record in applying justice evenhandedly to Shiites and Sunnis alike.

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