[14] Al-Majid would receive three more death sentences for other crimes: one for the 1991 suppression of a Shi'a uprising along with Abdul-Ghani Abdul Ghafur on 2 December 2008;[15] one for the 1999 crackdown in the assassination of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad al-Sadr on 2 March 2009;[16] and lastly on 17 January 2010 for the gassing of the Kurds in 1988.
On 4 October 2004, the Iraqi National Council approved the nomination of Judge Ammar al-Bakri, who became the new Administrator of the Special Tribunal – but was ousted in turn.
These include: 1) An almost complete lack of familiarity with international criminal law on the part of all Iraqi lawyers and judges involved in the trial; 2) Chaotic and inadequate administration which has given rise to major problems in performing basic administrative tasks necessary for a trial of this magnitude to run fairly; and 3) Such extensive use of anonymous witnesses that the defendants were deprived the right to contest the evidence against them.
Human Rights Watch considered the Dujail and Anfal trials to be unfair and stated that many of the charges were "vague", concluding that the defendants were unable to bring their witnesses due to safety issues within Iraq.
The trails were marked by absence of fundamental judicial proceedings, such as the murder of three defense lawyers and ample utilization of anonymous witnesses by the prosecution, whose claims could not be cross analyzed by the defendants.
Both within and outside Iraq, the trials by the Special Tribunal were dubbed as a "show parade" designed to execute Saddam and deemed as illegitimate by numerous lawyers and human rights organizations.
The tribunal itself was widely seen as a body that was influenced by the Bush administration since it was set by the Coalition Provisional Authority led by Paul Bremer, who himself directly reported to the US President.
"[27] One of the judges, Ra’id Juhi, had indicted Moqtada al-Sadr for murder in April 2004,[28] which British journalist Robert Fisk said had precipitated the Iraq spring fighting of 2004.
Fisk said that Juhi, a Shia Muslim then 33, had served as a judge under Saddam for a decade, then worked as a translator, and was appointed to the tribunal by Paul Bremer.
Women occupy a uniquely vulnerable position in conflict, and the Iraqi High Tribunal is charged with prosecuting gender-based crimes within the Hussein regime.
The judges of the Iraqi High Tribunal have taken a pioneering interest in gender justice, requesting a training in fall of 2006 on international law tenets that protect women's human rights.
[30] Attorney Janet Benshoof of the Global Justice Center was among the legal authorities stressing the importance of upholding women's rights in future Iraqi High Tribunal decisions.