Shi’ite politicians expressed anger on Monday as the trial of Saddam Hussein was adjourned for another week, after three hours of procedural wrangling and testimony from the first prosecution witness.
The Chief Judge, Rizgar Amin, was accused by one senior Shi’ite adviser in the government of being ”unduly indulgent” of mass murderers, after he adjourned the case so that the defence team could replace two lawyers who had been murdered and one who had fled abroad. The adviser said: ”We are fed up with having to delay justice for our people.”
With one eye on the approaching elections, members of the ruling Shi’ite establishment want to push on with the trial.
”It’s been two years since Saddam was captured. He should have been tried before now to give his victims the chance to see justice done and move on with their lives,” said Haitham al-Khadim, an aide to Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the most powerful Shi’ite party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
Saddam and seven former colleagues are charged with crimes against humanity, the first charges prepared against the former Ba’athist rulers.
Amid the violence against judges and lawyers and intimidation of witnesses, human rights and justice groups have called for the trial to be delayed, or moved abroad or to the safer Kurdish north.
All defendants have pleaded not guilty. They face the death penalty if convicted. The defence team, which on Monday was joined by the former United States attorney general Ramsey Clarke, said they needed more time to meet clients and study evidence.
Saddam seems determined to exploit his rare appearances in the spotlight. As he reached the dock, he complained that he had to walk up four flights of stairs in shackles escorted by ”foreign guards” because of a broken lift.
When Amin told him he would talk to the police, Saddam fired back: ”You are the chief judge. I don’t want you to tell them. I want you to order them. They are in our country. You have the sovereignty. You are Iraqi and they are foreigners and occupiers. They are invaders. You should order them.”
He also complained that his pens and some papers relating to the case had been taken. A brief flicker of irritation crossed Amin’s face before he told Saddam ”enough time has been wasted”.
Legal observers said on Monday night that despite Saddam’s defiant tone, the appeal to the court’s ”sovereignty” was a tacit acceptance of its legitimacy. At the opening session six weeks ago, Saddam refused to recognise the judge or the proceedings. In court on Monday, he clutched the Qur’an, ”a signal to his supporters that he will fight to the end”, said an Iraqi journalist, Khalil Jihad.
”When he was president he would often try to portray himself as a devout Muslim, but he killed so many of us.”
Before the delay, the first evidence was presented: grainy video footage shot by a cameraman of Saddam on the day of the Dujail assassination attempt. A sequence in which Saddam stops by the road and questions suspects himself was replayed several times, including a moment when Saddam orders aides to ”take them away separately and interrogate them”.
The court also heard its first testimony from the former intelligence officer Wadah Ismael al-Sheik, who investigated the assassination attempt, but who died of cancer soon after making a video statement last month. No defence lawyers were present when the testimony was filmed at a hospital and the witness was not cross-examined. — Guardian Unlimited Â