Update: Chalabi changes his story. Now he says Saddam won't be turned over by June 30 and won't be tried before 2005. [post title changed to reflect this]

Salem Chalabi, the chief director of the Iraqi tribunal that will try Saddam Hussein, says he and other top members of the regime now in U.S. custody will be turned over to the tribunal before June 30, and that the death penalty may be used.

US-led forces will hand over Saddam Hussein and top officials of his former regime to the Iraqis before the handover of power, a top lawyer who is coordinating the toppled dictator's trial said today. ''The coalition forces now have more than 100 detained former regime officials,'' Salem Chalabi told reporters in Kuwait. ''They will be transferred to us before the transfer of power, and they include Saddam Hussein, Ali Hassan al-Majid and Tareq Aziz.'' Washington has pledged to hand sovereignty to an unelected Iraqi government by June 30.

Chalabi says trials are expected to begin early next year, and that Saddam may not be first in the dock. Excuse us for being cynical, but we won't be shocked if President Bush convinces the tribunal to move the trials up to October, try Saddam first to get a quick death verdict against him just in time for the election. Then again, if Bush pulls Osama out of his hat in July or August as we expect he will, he may feel he doesn't need Saddam for that purpose. Unless, of course, the polls show him and Kerry still in a statistical dead heat.