BAGHDAD — At a new fortified complex here, Iraqi judges have become virtual prisoners, living side by side with the inmates they try.
Western guards patrol the compound, ensuring that criminal elements stay either in the complex's massive detention center, or outside the walls. In SUVs mounted with machine guns, the judges ride from their living quarters in a former police barracks past the detention center housing 5,000 detainees to a makeshift courtroom five minutes away, complete with wooden bench, black robes, video cameras and gold scales of justice embossed on the wall.
A ring of concrete barriers surrounds it all, reminiscent of Baghdad's fortified Green Zone across the river, but overshadowed by distinctly east Baghdad landmarks, including Saddam Hussein's Olympic Stadium and the teeming Shiite Muslim enclave of Sadr City.
A few Iraqi judges have moved into the fortified judicial compound to protect their loved ones and to shield themselves from intimidation. Some judges and their families have not left the Rusafa Rule of Law Complex in months.
Since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion, 31 judges have been assassinated in Iraq and scores have lost family members, said Army Col. Mark Martins, a staff judge advocate and legal advisor to Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American military commander in Iraq.
The killings, blamed on criminals and sectarian militias, drew widespread attention during Hussein's trials, when several judges on the special tribunal were targeted, despite efforts to conceal their identities.
Now the Rusafa judges are preparing to decide their first major corruption case against a man known simply as "Col. A." It is a test of the new Iraqi legal system, which U.S. advisors say is designed to ensure that corruption cases go to trial, judges are protected from intimidation, convictions are based on solid evidence and innocent detainees are released quickly.
"Judges will, if they're protected and their families are protected, make independent judgments and follow evidence where it leads," Martins said during a visit to the complex, which Martins called a "safe haven" for judges.
Renovated and staffed using $48.8 million from the Iraqi government, the complex is modeled on fortified courthouses in beleaguered countries such as Colombia where judges are often intimidated and killed. It opened in April, the first of several such facilities planned across Iraq.
