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Saddam shows up for resumption of trial
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-21 22:04
Muslims are required to pray five days a day at specific times.
The trial was marked by one unruly outburst 錕斤拷 from Saddam's half-brother and
co-defendant Barazan Ibrahim. In an exchange that was edited out of the
televised feed, Ibrahim called the witness "a dog," guards entered the court and
threatened to take him out. Ibrahim wagged his finger at the guards, telling
them only the judge could tell him to leave the court.
The prosecution's first witness on Wednesday was a man who testified about
killings and torture in Dujail after the attempt to assassinate Saddam. Ali
Hassan Mohammed al-Haidari, who was 14 years old in 1982, started off by quoting
from the Quran, the Islamic holy book, about how evil was coming and would be
defeated.
As al-Haidari turned to Saddam, who finished the phrase with him, the judge,
in an apparent early bid to take control of a courtroom that has often been
unruly, told the witness to address the court and not Saddam directly.
It was Saddam's first court appearance following last week's election, when
Iraqis swarmed to the polls to vote for the country's first full-term parliament
since his downfall.
During previous sessions, Saddam has been defiant and combative at times,
often trying to dominate the courtroom. He and his half brother_ Barazan
Ibrahim, who was head of the Iraqi intelligence during the Dujail incident_ have
used the procedures to protest their own conditions in detention.
At another point when the witness referred to Saddam by name, the former
leader interrupted, saying "Saddam who?" implying the proper respect hadn't been
shown. The judge asked the witness whom he meant, and the witness restated: "I
mean the former Iraqi president."
Al-Haidari, whose brother was the first witness at Saddam's trial, testified
that seven of his brothers were executed by Saddam's regime and so far their
bodies have not been found.
"During the period of Saddam's rule we were waiting for their release. Until
this day we have not received their bodies and we don't know where they were
buried," he said.
The court 錕斤拷 which held its first session Oct. 19 錕斤拷 has now heard from 10
witnesses, who often gave emotional testimonies of random arrests, hunger and
beatings while in custody and torture in detention.
Khamis al-Ubeidi, a lawyer on Saddam's defense team, argued that the
"witnesses have no legal value. Their testimonies are based on coaching and
unjustified narrative."
He said the defense team had security concerns that it wanted to tell the
court about.
"The court has to provide the lawyers and the defense witnesses with
security," he told the AP on Tuesday. "How can a lawyer work if he cannot move
freely because of the security situation?"
Some Iraqi government officials have said they hope the trial of Saddam will
help heal the wounds of his regime's victims and bring Iraqis closer together.
But the trial has also highlighted divisions between Iraq's various ethnic
and sectarian groups, with many Sunni Arabs expressing sympathy with the former
president and even nostalgia for his era.
By contrast, many Shiites and Kurds gloated over seeing the once powerful
Saddam reduced to a defendant.
The prosecution of Saddam could be a lengthy process.
The Dujail case is the first of up to a dozen that prosecutors plan to bring
to trial against Saddam and his Baath Party inner circle for atrocities during
their 23-year rule.
The trial is taking place in the five-story marble building that once served
as the National Command Headquarters of Saddam's feared Baath Party. The
building in Baghdad's Green Zone 錕斤拷 the heavily fortified district where Iraq's
government, parliament and the U.S. Embassy are located 錕斤拷 was heavily
guarded.
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