Saddam Hussein dismissed his trial as a ”comedy” when he testified for the first time on Wednesday in a case that could see him and his seven co-accused hanged for crimes against humanity.
The ousted Iraqi leader, who has made repeated outbursts during the trial, also called for resistance to the United States-led occupation, prompting Chief Judge Rauf Abdel Rahman to order the session closed.
Abdel Rahman cut Saddam off after about 20 minutes, terming his statements political and ordering the galleries cleared and television transmission stopped.
The remainder of Saddam’s testimony was heard in closed session before the judge adjourned the case to April 5.
The Iraqi high tribunal is trying Saddam and seven co-defendants, including former top regime officials, over a massacre of Shi’ites in the 1980s. They have all pleaded not guilty, but face execution if convicted.
”I call on the people to start resisting the invaders instead of killing each other,” Saddam said, describing himself as the country’s legitimate president.
”My people will never accept the occupation. It is my people who elected me in a referendum and who trusted me to lead them to safe harbour and I say to my people I remain faithful to them despite the injustices of which I am a victim,” Saddam said, reading from a text written in a yellow notebook.
He also called those who destroy mosques ”criminals” — a reference to the outbreak in sectarian violence that has rocked the country since the destruction of a Shi’ite shrine on February 22.
Saddam took the stand wearing his trademark tailored dark suit without a tie and reading glasses, following lengthy morning testimony by half-brother and feared former secret police chief Barzan al-Tikriti.
”I speak as president of the republic and the commander in chief of the armed forces,” he said.
”Your rule has ended, now you are a defendant in a criminal case,” Abdel Rahman told him. ”This is a criminal court, we are not interested in politics.”
Saddam retorted: ”As far as I am concerned, I take my responsibilities to the people seriously, until such a time as the people choose someone else to represent them.
Saddam later told the judge ”if it wasn’t for America, neither you nor your father could drag me here”.
The judge ordered him several times to confine his comments to the specific of the case arising out of the killing of 148 Shi’ites from the village of Dujail after Saddam escaped assassination there in 1982.
When Saddam embarked on another speech about the ”criminals who had invaded the country on the pretext of finding weapons of mass destruction”, the judge ordered the session closed.
In Barzan’s testimony, he denied involvement in mass reprisals ordered against Dujail after the assassination attempt.
”I arrested no one, it was the security services that were in charge” of operations in Dujail, he said. ”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.”
Barzan, wearing traditional Arab dress, appeared alone on Wednesday morning in the courtroom, wearing glasses and reading from a statement.
The trial, which opened in October, has reached its midway point and the three-judge panel is now expected to draft specific charges against each defendant before resuming with 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 attempting 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 adviser at the time of the incidents, said the decision was justified ”because they belonged to a group working for a foreign state who had jeopardised 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?”
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 said his capture, detention and trial were a violation of several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.
But the court decided that he was not under the jurisdiction of any European state at the time, so the plea was inadmissible. — Sapa-AFP