He came. He wrestled with court security officials. He sat in the dock. He said he didn't do it. He showed no regrets. If it had been any matter less serious than the trial of a man accused of tyranny and the slaughter of thousands of his own people, one might have been tempted to pipe Edith Piaf through the loudspeakers.

The trial of the century began on Wednesday, as Saddam Hussein faced judges on more than 500 charges relating to crimes against humanity. The most spectacular and well-documented charges include the poison gas deaths of more than 6,000 people in the city of Halabja in the Kurdish part of Iraq and the massacre of 143 men and boys in the town of Dujail after a failed assassination attempt against the Iraqi dictator.

Despite Germany's opposition to the Iraq war, one would be hard pressed to find any sympathy here for the country's fallen dictator. On Thursday, most papers celebrate the fact that Saddam Hussein has finally been brought to trial. Nevertheless, editorials in a number of newspapers express concern about the way the trial is being handled -- the court's strings are being pulled by the United States, and in many respects the court does not adhere to international standards of criminal justice. And don't even get them started about the death penalty.

"In principle, it's great news that Saddam is now having to account for the indescribable crimes of his horror regime," writes an editorialist for the center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung. "Saddam stands where he belongs, in front of the judges." Unfortunately, the paper laments, instead of becoming a milestone for international justice, "even before it began, it has been suspected that the trial is being led by a victor's justice." Many of the rules, it adds, do not follow international standards and the Iraqi court is under constant political influence. "The Iraqi government and the American occupiers have damaged the tribunal's credibility right from the start," the paper concludes. The paper also alleges that instead of fairly looking at each of the 500 charges placed against the former leader, the court is focusing on the easiest-to-prove allegations. The paper interprets this to mean that the court wants to complete this trial quickly, with a likely death sentence at the end -- "and that also violates globally recognized rules." The political judgment of Saddam has long been made -- he is a despot, the paper says -- now it's just being proven legally. But the paper does offer one glimmer of hope: "If the judges succeed in freeing themselves from political influences and conduct the trial using international norms, then this trial could also be conducted with honor."

Germany's conservative paper of record, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, offers a different take -- something along the lines of: the Iraqis are doing the best job they can with this trial, so cut them some slack. The paper's editorial notes the international concerns about whether or not a fair trial could actually take place in Iraq. "The idea that this is victor's justice can't even be disputed," the editorialist writes. And what else should it be? "Of course the level of the rule of law is higher in countries like Germany and America," the paper continues, "than they could be in a country that has no tradition of an independent justice system or where a court is having to find the balance between old Iraqi law and international criminal law -- and whose members have to fear for their own safety." Of course there are aspects of this trial that don't come out of the legal textbook, the paper argues, but could it have been any different? "Following the experiences we've had up until now with the Milosevic trial, which has become a farce, the Iraqis would have seen any effort to try (Saddam) before an international tribunal as little more than a bad joke."

Not so, argues the leftist Die Tageszeitung, which sees The Hague as the most appropriate venue for Saddam's trial. The paper predicts the possibility of a disastrous trial that could pour gasoline on the fire of a civil war in Iraq. If that happens, it argues, the case should be moved to the International Criminal Court. The court doesn't have the mandate to take on cases based on crimes committed before its creation in 2002, but cases can be transferred to the court via the United Nations Security Council. "No attempts have been made to do so out of the assumption they would get vetoed by the US," the paper writes. "Besides, the new Iraqi government views the trial against the ex-dictator as a prestige thing." But if the meltdown does happen, the paper has an alternative. It suggests the US might permit the trial to be moved to the ICC so long as the court does not investigate the support Washington gave Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war. But this is a bitter pill the international community could swallow if it knew that a trial procedure, that would foster acceptance, had been secured at a non-partisan international court."

No way, counters the Financial Times Deutschland. "Iraq has the right for Saddam to be tried in his own country," the paper opines. "The Iraqis have earned the right to independence in adjudicating the law." The expectations for this trial, it adds, are high in Iraq and abroad. The paper is supportive of the trial, but also notes that it faces many difficult challenges. "The judges have little experience and they, as well as the witnesses, have been put under great personal risk. The first attacks have already happened." Still, the editorial expresses an almost universal concern in German papers that the trial will end too quickly. "Quick revenge," it opines, "would send a disastrous message for these types of proceedings." In the end, it argues, the "international community needs to clearly signalize its high expectations for a fair trial. At the same time, it shouldn't thumb its nose at the trial -- instead it should support Baghdad in whichever ways it is capable."