Rizgar Mohammed Amin ( ar, رزكار محمد أمين) (born 1957) is the former chief judge of the

Iraqi Special Tribunal The Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT), formerly the Iraqi Special Tribunal and sometimes referred to as the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal, is a body established under Iraqi national law to try Iraqi nationals or residents accused of genocide, crimes aga ...

's Al-Dujail trial. He is the only judge whose name was revealed on the trial's opening on 19 October 2005, the names of the other four judges and all but two of his four colleagues faces not allowed to be shown during the televised portions of the trial.(Telegraph.co.uk - 12:30AM GMT 15 January 2006) Amin graduated from the Law School of

Baghdad University The University of Baghdad (UOB) ( ar, جامعة بغداد ''Jāmi'at Baghdād'') is the largest university in Iraq, tenth largest in the Arab world, and the largest university in the Arab world outside Egypt. Nomenclature Both University ...

in 1980. He is an ethnic

Kurd ug:كۇردلار Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian peoples, Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Ir ...

, though he has no record of political activism, or connections to the ''

Peshmerga The Peshmerga ( ku, پێشمەرگه, Pêşmerge, lit=those who face death) is the Kurdish military forces of the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. According to the Constitution of Iraq, the Peshmerga, along with their security subsidiaries, ...

''. He was a regional judge during the presidency of

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...

. Amin lives in

Sulaymaniyah Sulaymaniyah, also spelled as Slemani ( ku, سلێمانی, Silêmanî, ar, السليمانية, as-Sulaymāniyyah), is a city in the east of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, not far from the Iran–Iraq border. It is surrounded by the Azmar, Go ...

with his wife Nazanin Ahmed (born 1962) and four children, born between 1990 and 2001. Because he had refused to join the

Ba'ath Ba'athism, also stylized as Baathism, (; ar, البعثية ' , from ' , meaning "renaissance" or "resurrection"Hans Wehr''Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic'' (4th ed.), page 80) is an Arab nationalist ideology which promotes the creation a ...

party, he was only admitted to the college of judges in 1990, after working in a subordinate position for ten years. Amin was appointed chief judge of the regional court by

Jalal Talabani Jalal Talabani ( ku, مام جەلال تاڵەبانی, translit=Celal Talebanî; ar, جلال طالباني ; 1933 – 3 October 2017) was an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the sixth president of Iraq from 2006 to 2014, as well as ...

in the mid-1990s. On 14 January 2006, he resigned as chief judge of the trials of Saddam Hussein, due to government interference and harsh public criticism. He was replaced by

Rauf Rashid Abd al-Rahman Rauf Rashid Abd al-Rahman (born 1941) is the replacement chief judge of the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal's Al-Dujail trial of Saddam Hussein in 2006, when he sentenced Saddam and some of his top aides to death by hanging. Abd al-Rahman is a ...

External links

Saddam Hussein judge to quit trial, friend says

Guardian Unlimited TheGuardian.com, formerly known as Guardian.co.uk and ''Guardian Unlimited'', is a British news and media website owned by the Guardian Media Group. It contains nearly all of the content of the newspapers ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'', ...

14 January 2006
Saddam trial judge offers to quit

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

15 January 2006
Pressure on Saddam judge to stay in job
Guardian Unlimited 16 January 2006
Iraq court names new Saddam judge
BBC News 23 January 2006 20th-century Iraqi judges Iraqi Kurdish people 1957 births Living people University of Baghdad alumni 21st-century Iraqi judges {{Iraq-bio-stub