When a century ago, Chinese agents seized the rebel leader, Sun Yat-sen, as he walked past the Chinese Legation in Portland Place, London, and held him captive in it, he managed to throw a scribbled plea for help on a scrap of paper out of this third floor prison. A priest picked it up, alerted the newspapers, questions asked in the House of Commons, and his arrest soon became a cause celebre.

The legation called a press conference to insist Sun is a prisoner, would be tried in China. This raised the usual questions of that. The head of the legation tetchily replied: "He will get a fair

trial in China. First the trial, then the execution." The British Government stepped in. That saved Sun, who went on to overthrow the monarchy a decade later.

The United States on what to do with Saddam Hussein is no different than China's over Sun. When Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi demands a fair trial for Mr Saddam, he conveniently forgot the injustice meted out to his own Saddam or Sun - the former deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim (photo), rotting in jail by the same judicial machinations as the US wants in Iraq and China wanted for Dr Sun.

Sun Yat-sen wanted to overthrow the Chinese Empire. If he had been caught in any other country, even Malaysia, where he lived for years, he would have been sent back to China and certain death. The view of governments at those it want destroyed is: "He is ours. We can do what we like with him. No one should question it. We want him dead. We will decide how. The others should not object. Let us do our dirty work, however messy."

To mollify public opinion, he will face trial in what is a kangaroo court, and convicted. It happened to Anwar. It happened in the victors' courts in Europe and Japan, after World War II. It would

happen now in Iraq. But the US would not have an easy passage. For one, the invasion is illegal, as the German invasion of Poland in 1939.