He arrived rattling in chains at the door of a building named Victory Courthouse in the grounds of his former palace now occupied by America’s generals.
High Value Detainee One was uncuffed, brought in with guards holding him by the arms and curtly seated before the judge. This was the moment so many of his subjects had hungered for and not a few had dreaded: their dictator rendered impotent, humiliated and accused before an Iraqi court.
For a moment he sat nonplussed and then began in the simplest way what may become a protracted and politicised campaign of defiance. “I am Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq,” he said.
If his critics, opponents and victims were expecting the final disgrace of their scourge this was not it. Instead, clear-eyed, insistent, prodding and embittered, Saddam for 26 minutes seemed to fill the court with his hectoring.
Before him the young, clean-shaven judge, too frightened to be named, appeared at a loss to curb the lectures of his former dictator. It should have been the briefest of formalities, the reading of accusations of heinous crimes and an explanation of the defendant’s legal rights. Instead, every moment became a challenge.
Saddam (67) was asked to confirm his name, date of birth and position as former president, head of the Arab Ba’ath Socialist party and leader of the Iraqi armed forces. For a second time he described himself as the still-serving president. “Put down ‘former’ in brackets,” the judge told the court clerk. Where do you live, the judge asked? “I live in each Iraqi’s house,” came the reply.
Then the former dictator turned to the judge to begin his own interrogation. He asked the judge who he was, where he studied for his law degree, whether he was properly qualified and under which law he was acting.
“I have worked since the former regime and I have been nominated by the coalition authorities,” the judge said. Saddam snapped back: “This means you are applying the invaders’ laws to try me.”
Later it began again: “How do you bring me to this place without any defence attorney?” Saddam asked. The judge said the court would provide a lawyer if he could not afford one. “But everyone says, the Americans say, I have millions of dollars stashed away in Geneva. Why shouldn’t I afford a lawyer?” The judge promised him access to his private team of defence lawyers.
Outside in the brilliant sunshine two Apache attack helicopters circled overhead. The court building had once been the residence for an imam from the blue-domed mosque next door. American troops had repainted it and inside held their first courts martial in the Abu Ghraib abuse investigation.
Saddam wore a chalkstripe grey jacket, brown trousers and a white open-necked shirt, all bought a few days earlier from a Baghdad high street store. It meant he looked in better health than last time he was seen in public. That was in December hours after he had been dragged from a shallow hole in the dirt close to the village where he was born. His hair and beard were dirty and unkempt.
For Thursday’s appearance he had trimmed his beard and tidied his hair. There was only an occasional tremor in his hands as he spoke, and as the guards went to take him to leave he said: “Take it easy, I’m an old man.”
The press was so tightly controlled that barely a handful of Arab and western reporters were granted access. The only journalist present from an Iraqi organisation was told to leave before the hearing began. The US military refused to let journalists record the hearing and then afterwards refused to release their own audio tape of the proceedings until it had been approved.
In court, next to the press, sat Saddam’s accusers: Salem Chalabi, the director of the court and nephew of Saddam’s most vocal opponent, Ahmad Chalabi, and Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, a former exile in Britain, close ally of the Americans and now national security adviser for the new Iraqi government. They were among those who crafted the law and chose the crimes with which Saddam will eventually be formally charged.
From a single sheet of paper the judge read the seven briefly outlined charges which will be investigated in greater detail. They ranged from the general, the killing of political and of religious leaders over the past 30 years, to the specific: the chemical weapons attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja in 1988, the Anfal campaign against the Kurds around the same time, the killing of the Barzanis, the family of a leading Kurdish politician, the repression of the 1991 uprising that followed the Gulf war and the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.
As the list was read Saddam reached into his jacket pocket to pull out a folded sheet of legal notepaper and began writing. He was not asked to admit or deny the accusations, though he did not seem to shirk the blame: “I did all these things as president so don’t strip me of that title,” he said.
The mention of Kuwait, though, particularly inflamed him. “I am surprised you are charging me with this. You are Iraqi and everyone knows Kuwait is part of Iraq,” he said.
Then he grew more angry, gesticulating rapidly, grasping his temple, prodding his pen at the court. “In Kuwait I was protecting the Iraqi people from those Kuwaiti dogs who wanted to turn Iraqi women into 10-dinar prostitutes,” he said. And again later in exasperation: “Everyone knows this is theatre by Bush the criminal in an attempt to win the election.”
In the end the judge asked him to sign a document acknowledging he understood the accusations against him. Saddam refused. “Please allow me not to sign until the lawyers are present,” he said. “Why would you behave in a manner that we might call hasty later on?”
After Saddam was led out Chalabi and Rubaie grinned and joked at the spectacle they had witnessed.
Another 11 detainees, all senior party or military officials from the regime, including Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as Chemical Ali, Tariq Aziz, the former foreign minister, and Saddam’s half-brothers Watban and Barzan al-Tikriti, made much briefer appearances through the rest of the afternoon.
Already the Iraqi government has reintroduced the death penalty with an eye to Saddam’s almost inevitable fate. “It’s going to be the trial of the century,” said Rubaie. – Guardian Unlimited Â