Saddam Hussein was back in court on Wednesday on charges of crimes against humanity, calmly taking notes as a witness recounted how he and his family were tortured and beaten after an attempt on the ousted Iraqi dictator’s life.
Saddam (68) had defiantly boycotted the last hearing two weeks ago after denouncing the legality of the tribunal and telling the judge to ”go to hell”.
He and seven of his associates are being tried over the killing of 148 Shi’ites from Dujail after Saddam was targeted by an assassination attempt in the village in 1982.
The trial resumed after a two-week break allowing for a key general election to elect the first full-term government since Saddam’s repressive Ba’athist regime was toppled from power by the 2003 United States-led invasion.
”I cannot describe the torture we were subjected to. They would take one of us away and he would return in a sheet, dripping in blood,” said witness Ali Mohammed Hussein al-Haydari, who was 14 at the time.
Testifying just a couple of metres away from a bespectacled Saddam, who sat calmly taking notes, Haydari said he was locked up with hundreds of others in the local intelligence headquarters after the regime’s clampdown.
Saddam and his co-defendants have all pleaded not guilty to charges including murder and torture but face the death penalty if convicted.
‘It was very frightening’
The witness told how his entire family of 43 members — women, children and the elderly included — were arrested in the wake of the attack against Saddam.
”They broke the outside door and rushed inside shouting. It was very frightening.”
Haydari said he was held along with hundreds of others at the intelligence headquarters.
”The toilet was always overflowing because there were so many of us,” he said. ”We all got sick.”
Several of his seven brothers were later killed by the security forces, he said.
Haydari said he recognised Saddam’s half-brother, Barzan Tikriti, who at the time was in charge of the secret police and who, he said, was involved in interrogating detainees.
At one stage, as he was lying down because of sickness, ”Tikriti came by and asked what was wrong with me”.
”He then kicked me on the leg and told guards not to treat me, adding that none in my family was worth being kept alive,” he said.
Angry denial
Barzan, who is one of the eight defendants, angrily denied being involved in torture and accused the witness of lying.
He also denounced Kurdish presiding Judge Rizkar Mohammed Amin, saying: ”If you were a real Iraqi, you would be here with us in the dock.”
Haydari said he and some members of his family were later transferred to the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, before being exiled for years to a remote desert settlement.
”Over four years, no one ever questioned me. I never knew why I was arrested,” he added.
Earlier, the Qatari lawyer on Saddam’s defence team once again complained about a lack of security for the attorneys.
”We cannot continue with this case if there is deficiency in security,” Naji al-Nuaimi said.
”We were threatened at the airport and later put up in a house with no door to the lavatory,” he complained.
Two defence lawyers were assassinated shortly after the start of the trial on October 19.
Foreign lawyers
The judge also rejected a prosecution appeal to bar foreign lawyers assisting Saddam’s team from the proceedings.
Former US attorney general Ramsey Clark has not returned to Baghdad because of security concerns, but another US attorney who was to stand in for him, Curtis Doebbler, was not immediately seated at the start of Wednesday’s hearing.
Liable to be hanged if found guilty, Saddam, who once embodied Arab defiance of the West, is the first Middle East head of state to be tried by his own people.
”Saddam, your name makes America tremble,” demonstrators shouted as they marched through heavily policed streets of his hometown of Tikrit carrying portraits of the former president, as others called Saddam the ”pride of the Arabs”.
The trial, however, is not expected to extend past Thursday when it is likely to be adjourned again until mid-January because of the announcement of Iraq’s election results, holidays and the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
In court, Saddam demanded in vain that the trial be adjourned to allow him to say his prayers.
He then turned in his chair, facing towards Mecca, and prayed for about 10 minutes while the prosecution witness continued to testify. — AFP
