Saddam Hussein was being cross-examined for the first time in court Wednesday
by judges and prosecutors in a new session of his trial for the killings of
Shiites in the 1980s.
Former Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein speaks at his trial in Baghdad in this March 1, 2006, file
photo. The Iraq tribunal on Tuesday, April 4, 2006, announced new criminal
charges against Hussein and six others in a 1980s crackdown against the
Kurds, including the gassing of thousands of civilians in the village of
Halabja. Investigative judge Raid Juhi said the charges against Saddam and
the others had been filed with another judge, who will review the evidence
and order a trial date. The move is tantamount to an indictment under the
Iraqi legal system. [AP\file] |
Saddam was the sole defendant in the courtroom as Wednesday's session opened.
His seven co-defendants testified one by one in earlier sessions over their role
in a crackdown against Shiites in the town of Dujail in 1982.
The new session came a day after prosecutors indicted Saddam on separate
charges of genocide, accusing him of trying to exterminate Kurds in a 1980s
campaign that killed an estimated 100,000 people. The charges will be dealt with
in a separate trial.
Saddam had been due to testify and be questioned in the last session of the
Dujail trial, on March 15.
But he launched into a long speech calling on Iraqis to stop secular violence
and unite to fight American troops. After demanding that Saddam stop making
political speeches, Chief Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman closed most of the session to
the public to allow Saddam to finish talking.
Wednesday's cross-examination was the first opportunity in the six-month-old
trial for judges and prosecutors to directly question Saddam over allegations he
directed the crackdown against Dujail residents in which 140 Shiites were killed
and hundreds were imprisoned, some of them undergoing torture.
Saddam has acknowledged ordering the trial in which the 140 Shiites were
sentenced to death but has maintained his actions were legal because they were
in response to a 1982 assassination attempt against him in the town.
In court Wednesday, Saddam demanded an international body examine signatures
alleged to be his on documents the prosecution has presented concerning the
crackdown, including an order approving the death sentences. Some of Saddam's
co-defendants have insisted that signatures said to be theirs are forged.
"You should resort to an impartial, international body" and not a body "that
kills thousands people on the streets and tortures them ... the Interior
Ministry," Saddam told Abdel-Rahman, referring to the now-Shiite-controlled
ministry, which some Iraqis accuse of backing Shiite militias that have
assassinated Sunni Arabs.
"Don't venture into political matters," Abdel-Rahman replied.
"If you are scared of the Interior minister, he doesn't scare my dog," Saddam
retorted.
Saddam and the seven former members of his regime face possible execution by
hanging if they are convicted in connection with the crackdown launched in
Dujail following a July 8, 1982 shooting attack on Saddam's motorcade in the
town.