Saddam Hussein’s half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, on Wednesday denied involvement in mass reprisals ordered against a village after the ousted Iraqi leader escaped assassination there in 1982.
”I arrested no one, it was the security services that were in charge” of operations in Dujail, Barzan said as the trial of Saddam and seven co-accused resumed before the Iraqi high tribunal.
”I can assure you I have no responsibility in this matter. It was handled by the former head of security who has since died. Just show me one document proving that I ordered an arrest or the destruction of someone’s farm,” he said.
Barzan, the seventh defendant to testify to charges of killing 148 Shi’ites in the village just north of Baghdad, said he only went to Dujail twice — on the day of the assassination attempt and on the following day.
Barzan, wearing traditional Arab dress, appeared alone on Wednesday morning in the courtroom, wearing glasses and reading from a statement.
Saddam himself was expected to testify in the afternoon.
The trial, which opened in October, has reached its mid-way point and was expected to adjourn on Wednesday evening for two to four weeks while its three-judge panel drafts specific charges against each defendant.
The trial was then to resume with both the prosecution and lawyers for the defence making their arguments.
All defendants risk hanging if found guilty.
On Sunday and Monday, the other defendants, including the former head of Iraq’s Revolutionary court, Awad Ahmad al-Bander al-Sadun, who sentenced the 148 to death, either denied taking part in the reprisals or argued they were acting within the law.
Bander acknowledged presiding over the court that passed death penalties on the villagers, but said they had ”confessed” to attempted to kill Saddam under orders from Iran at a time when the two countries were at war.
Barzan, who once headed the intelligence service but who was a presidential advisor at the time of the incidents, said the decision was justified ”because they belonged to a group working for a foreign state who had jeopardized Iraq’s security”.
He said he saw nothing wrong with putting people on trial who had sought to kill a head of state.
”Is there a country in the world where authorities don’t take action against those trying to kill their president?” he asked.
Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday rejected a case brought by Saddam against 21 European countries that were part of the coalition that invaded his country in 2003.
Saddam’s lawyers in their submission said his capture, detention and trial were a violation of several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.
But the court decided that the ex-president was not under the jurisdiction of any European state at the time, so the plea was inadmissible. – AFP
