On 19 March 2003, coalition forces launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. Baghdad fell 21 days later, on 9 April.

The Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein – who had ruled the country since 1979 – escaped from the capital and headed into the countryside. He evaded capture for eight months, until betrayed to US forces, who found him on 13 December in an underground hide at a farmhouse near Tikrit.

The US kept Hussain until June the following year, when they handed authority over him to the interim Iraqi government, although they kept him in US custody as the Iraqi authorities had no suitable detention facility.

On July 1, 2004, the Iraqi Special Tribunal charged Hussein with a range of crimes relating to the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the massacres – including gassing – of various populations of Kurds and Shiites, the murder of political opponents and activists over a period of three decades, and certain other specified killings.

The government followed up the next year with an announcement that it would add 12 additional charges of crimes against humanity. All in all, a succession of separate trials were envisaged to address the numerous offences.