BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Saddam Hussein could be executed before the Iraqi Special Tribunal finishes charging him with all his alleged crimes, a source close to the tribunal said Sunday.

For members of some groups allegedly abused by Saddam, the possibility that he would not face their allegations drew mixed feelings.

His first trial, along with seven co-defendants, is set to begin Oct. 19. It will weigh charges that they massacred 143 people in Dujail, a predominantly Shiite town north of Baghdad, in 1982 after a failed assassination attempt. If convicted, Saddam could be sentenced to death.

Five-judge panel

Sunday, officials began releasing more details of how the court will operate. Instead of a jury, a five-judge panel will hear the case and one will be the presiding judge. The defendants will be charged together, unlike in U.S. courts.

Each defendant will have his own attorney, an official close to the tribunal explained, and the judges may reach a different verdict for each. The official asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak publicly for the tribunal.

Once the court is finished with the first case, Saddam probably will face another trial for allegedly committing similar crimes in other communities, mostly Shiite Muslim and Kurdish areas, the official said. Saddam is a Sunni Muslim, the minority sect predominant in Iraq during his dictatorship.

If he is sentenced to death in the Dujail case, he also will begin his appeals process, the official said. Should he lose his appeal, he would be executed 30 days later.

That could occur, the official continued, "before all the cases have been decided."

Reactions were mixed among Kurdish and Shiite National Assembly members Sunday to the possibility that Saddam might be executed for just one of what they say were hundreds of brutal acts.

"We want Saddam to be tried for each case. However, we want the procedures to be quick," said Baha Araji, a Shiite assemblyman said. "We want them to carry out the capital punishment as soon as possible."

But Kurdish member Abdul Khaliq Zangana disagreed, saying: "We want him to be tried for all these crimes and not only for Dujail. We do not want him to be tried for one and let off for others."

Also on Sunday, Shiite and Kurdish officials, with U.S. mediation, negotiated with Sunni Arab leaders over possible last-minute additions to Iraq's proposed constitution, trying to win Sunni support ahead of next weekend's crucial referendum.

Attacks continue

But the sides remained far apart over basic issues -- including the federalism that Shiites and Kurds insist on. Though major attacks in the insurgent campaign to disrupt the referendum have waned in recent days, violence killed 13 Iraqis on Sunday.

In one attack, masked gunmen in police commando uniforms burst into a school in the northern town of Samarra, pulled a Shiite teacher out of his classroom and shot him dead, police said. A suicide car bomb killed a woman and a child in the southern city of Basra.

A U.S. Marine was killed by a roadside bomb in the town of Ar-Ramadi, west of Baghdad, on Saturday, the ninth U.S. death during a series of offensives waged in western Iraq seeking to knock Al-Qaida militants and other insurgents off balance and prevent attacks during Saturday's vote.

The death brought to 1,954 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to the Associated Press.

By Nancy A. Youssef
Knight Ridder