The trial of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein on charges of crimes against humanity was adjourned on Wednesday to November 28.
The decision was made by Kurdish Judge Rizkar Mohammed Amin following a request by Saddam’s Iraqi lawyer for a three-month delay.
A defiant Saddam pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges of crimes against humanity, refusing to recognise the court on the first day of a trial that could see him sentenced to death.
Facing the first of what could be several cases over atrocities committed during his quarter-century in power, Saddam entered the Baghdad courtroom carrying a copy of the Qur’an and wearing a dark suit and open-necked shirt.
”I said what I said; I am not guilty, I am innocent,” Saddam told the court after charges that included torture, murder and forced imprisonment were read out.
A bearded Saddam, who was not handcuffed, described himself as the ”president of Iraq” according to footage broadcast from the courtroom with a delay of about 30 minutes, but refused to give his name.
”I don’t acknowledge either the entity that authorises you nor the aggression, because everything based on falsehood is falsehood,” Saddam said from the waist-high metal cage in which he was sitting.
Judge Amin, looking increasingly exasperated, said: ”For the record, the witness refuses to give his name.”
Possible death sentence
Security was tight at the grey marble courtroom in the heart of Baghdad’s highly fortified Green Zone, where Saddam and seven of his former henchmen face trial for the murder of 143 Shi’ite villagers from Dujail, north of the capital.
The panel of five judges, sitting in front of large gold-coloured scales of justice, could sentence them to death if convicted.
”They are charged with murder, forced expulsion, imprisonment, failure to comply with international law and torture,” Amin told the eight, all of whom pleaded not guilty.
”These defendants have personal responsibility in the case,” he said, adding that according to the legal code, the charges carry the death penalty.
The defendants include Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, Saddam’s half-brother and a former director of the feared Mukhabarat intelligence service, and former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan, one of the regime’s ”enforcers”.
The eight were sitting in steel-barred waist-high pens equipped with microphones, some wearing traditional Arab chequered headdresses. Several followed Saddam’s lead and refused to give their names.
”Trial of the century” trumpeted the headline in al-Bayan, the mouthpiece of the Shi’ite Dawa party of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari. ”Iraqis will finally see their former dictator at the mercy of Iraqi justice.”
Two mortar bombs landed in the Green Zone shortly before the trial, without causing any casualties, following calls by Saddam’s supporters for attacks.
Defiant defendants
Taking his lead from Saddam, Ramadan also defied the court, telling the judge only: ”I repeat what president Saddam Hussein said.”
Ramadan was vice-president under Saddam from 1991 and one of his regime’s ”enforcers”.
Tikriti, meanwhile, was instructed to indicate where his lawyer was.
”Where do you want me to see my lawyer?” he answered sharply before giving a dismissive wave of his hand and sitting down.
Mohammed Azzam al-Ali, a former local Ba’ath official who is also on trial, told the judge: ”I was born in 1943, I am a mechanic and I worked in several towns near Dujail.”
”What did I do to find myself in this court?” Ali asked, adding: ”I swear before God I will only tell the truth.”
The case will make history in the region as it marks the first time an Arab leader is being put on trial for crimes against his own people.
Saddam was captured in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit in December 2003 after months on the run following his ouster in April of that year by United States-led invasion forces.
Armed US marshals were patrolling outside the courthouse in a former Ba’ath Party headquarters palace, while journalists covering the trial were subject to full-body X-rays as well as the usual checks.
Charges
Saddam (68) is likely to face subsequent charges over the gassing of 5 000 people in the Kurdish village of Halabja in March 1988; the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, during which about one million people were killed; the 1990 invasion of Kuwait; and the violent suppression of a Shi’ite uprising the following year.
Yet these more high-profile cases have been put aside for a relatively obscure case: the 1982 killing of 143 residents of the Shi’ite village of Dujail, allegedly as revenge for an attempt on Saddam’s life.
In Dujail, villagers, including women clutching pictures of slain relatives, waved banners urging ”death for Saddam Hussein”.
Human Rights Watch, which exhaustively documented atrocities committed during Saddam’s regime, has expressed doubts the trial will be fair.
The US-based group said problems with the tribunal and its statute include the lack of a requirement to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt, disputes among Iraqi politicians over court control and a ban on any commutation of death sentences.
The White House said it expects the trial to follow ”basic international standards”.
”This is an Iraqi process. The Iraqi people will make the decision about how they hold Saddam Hussein to account for his crimes against humanity and his brutalities against the Iraqi people,” said spokesperson Scott McClellan.
The highly anticipated trial comes just days after a largely peaceful referendum on a proposed new Constitution to lay down the democratic foundations for Iraq after Saddam’s tyrannical rule.
Earlier on Wednesday, Saddam scuffled briefly with security guards after they tried to grab his arm to take him out of the court for a brief recess but he resisted.
Saddam, who challenged the authority of the court and frequently sparred with the chief judge, argued with the two men for about 30 seconds before the guards allowed him to leave unaided.
Defence team blasts Iraq, US
Saddam’s Jordan-based defence team on Wednesday accused Iraq and the US government of refusing to allow non-Iraqi lawyers to meet the ousted leader as his trial opened in Baghdad.
”The defendant, his family and his court-appointed lawyer have requested that the defendant be allowed to meet with a number of lawyers, namely Mr Ramsey Clark and Mr Najeeb bin Mohammed al-Nuaimi,” they said in a statement.
”All meetings have been denied by the US and Iraqi governments,” the statement said.
It was released as Saddam, along with seven co-defendants, appeared in court in Baghdad on charges of crimes against humanity over a 1982 massacre of 143 Shi’ite villagers.
Saddam (68) is being represented in court by a lone Iraqi lawyer, Khalil Dulaimi. Clark is a former US attorney general and Nuaimi a Qatari lawyer and former government minister.
”The defence counsel, despite his repeated written and oral requests, has not been allowed to involve international experts in the case on behalf of the defendant despite the fact that the case involved complex issues of international law beyond the expertise of the lone court-appointed lawyer,” the statement said.
It repeated complaints by Dulaimi that he ”has not been permitted adequate time or facilities to prepare a defence”.
The defence team also reiterated claims that Saddam ”did not receive any written statement of charges against him prior to the opening of the trial” and said he was not given the chance ”to confront any of the prosecution witnesses against him”.
Furthermore, the team charged that testimony by prosecution witnesses were ”taken without defence counsel or the defendant present”. — AFP
