Cairo, Nov. 4 (AP): US-led forces in Iraq failed to safeguard official documents belonging to Saddam Hussein?s deposed regime and mass graves holding the remains of thousands of victims, a human rights watchdog said today, saying such ?negligence? may affect the trials for the former Iraqi dictator and his colleagues.

Human Rights Watch says in its 41-page report, titled Iraq: The State of the Evidence, that coalition forces failed to stop people stealing thousands of official documents in the months after the March 2003 invasion. They also failed to stop people from damaging some of the more than 250 mass graves in their search for the remains of relatives.

?Coalition forces subsequently failed to put in place the professional expertise and assistance necessary to ensure proper classification and exhumation procedures,? said Sarah Leah whitson, executive director of West Asia and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch.

?As a result, it is very likely that key evidentiary materials have been lost or tainted,? she said. Saddam has been accused of ordering the killing of tens of thousands of Shias and Kurds who rose up against him in 1991.