Activists put war in Iraq 'on trial' in Istanbul

Prize-winning authors and dozens of activists gathered in Istanbul on Friday for a three-day unofficial tribunal to put the U.S.-led war in Iraq on trial.

The World Tribunal on Iraq will deliver a verdict on Sunday following three days of speeches, discussions and testimony from witnesses, although the decision appears to be a foregone conclusion.

The war in Iraq was "one of the most cowardly wars ever fought in history, a war in which international institutions were used to force a country to disarm and then stood by while it was attacked with a greater array of weapons than has ever been used in the history of war," prize-winning Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy, spokeswoman for the panel, said in her opening remarks.

The Istanbul session is the third and final session of the group. The first two sessions took place in Brussels and New York.

The tribunal features dozens of intellectuals, scholars and authors, as well as activists and soldiers who served in Iraq.

Other prominent attendees include international legal scholar Richard Falk, two former United Nations assistant secretaries-general, former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter and Eve Ensler, author of "The Vagina Monologues."

AP