The Iraqi court trying Saddam Hussein was thrown into fresh confusion on Wednesday when a senior official denounced the new chief judge as a member of Saddam?s banned Baath party who should be barred from office. ?(Sayeed) al-Hamashi is the object of a debaathification inquiry,? Ali Faisal, executive manager of the independent Debaathification Commission, told Reuters. ?His presence in this court violates the statutes ... and he must be replaced.? He said Hamashi?s position came to the Commission?s notice when he was named by officials as taking over after the current chief judge resigned, complaining of government pressure on the US-sponsored tribunal to be tougher on Saddam in court. Several court officers stepped down before the trial began last year over links with the Baath party but fellow lawyers, including the chief trial prosecutor, defended Hamashi?s record.

US President George W. Bush said, however, the trial was on track. Meeting alleged Iraqi victims in the White House he said that in the trial this year the world would see ?the butcherer ... get his due justice under rule of law.? The resignation of Kurdish chief judge Rizgar Amin had rocked a court whose ability to stage a fair trial in the midst of sectarian and ethnic conflict among Saddam?s fellow Sunni Arabs and the Shi?ite- and Kurdish-led government had already been thrown into doubt by the killings of two defense lawyers. International human rights groups have urged US and Iraqi officials to pass the trial to an international court.

Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi was skeptical that Hamashi, a fellow Shi?ite, had Baathist links and insisted the Commission produce proof before the court would act: ?Hamashi denies having any relationship with the Baath party,? he told Reuters. ?The Commission ... must provide its evidence.? The Commission, set up under US military rule after Saddam?s overthrow in 2003, is charged with rooting out members of the Baath party from positions of power. Faisal said the Commission did not have to produce evidence but that those it accused of Baath membership could appeal through the courts.

Amin has made clear he objected to political interference in the trial and court sources said on Wednesday it was looking unlikely that efforts would succeed to persuade him to stay on. Hamashi, a Shi?ite and the senior of the four other judges on the panel trying Saddam in the first case for crimes against humanity, was named by court officials on Monday as taking over temporarily, in accordance with standard procedure. Sources inside the High Tribunal said he had also emerged as the consensus choice of his fellow judges to take over permanently in the event Amin stood by his resignation.