The trial of Saddam Hussein on charges of crimes against humanity resumed on Wednesday for a brief ten minute session without the deposed leader or any of the other seven defendants present.
Chief Judge Rauf Abdel Rahman adjourned the session to April 17 after the shortest session of the trial since it began in October.
“The trial is adjourned to April 17 for experts to verify the signatures of the defendants who were not in the court today [Wednesday],” Abdel Rahman said.
“We adjourn to give the experts time to accomplish their task of verifying the signatures.”
He said the signatures of defendants Saddam, Barzan Ibrahim Tikriti, Ali Daeh Ali, Abdullah Khadem Ruweid and Mezhar Abdullah Ruweid have to be verified.
The prosecution has presented enormous volumes of documents with signatures of Saddam and other defendants linking them to the massacre of 148 Shi’ites from Dujail village in the mid-1980s.
These documents need to be verified by experts. Saddam and some of the other defendants have already dismissed these documents, saying they were forged.
Earlier on Tuesday a court official had said that Wednesday’s session was expected to be a short one with none of the defendants appearing in the court.
In sharp contrast to raucous earlier hearings, the trial has recently moved to the more mundane business of introducing evidence.
Nehal Buta of New York based Human Rights Watch, who has been tracking the trial since October, said: “The prosecution has to now levy individual charges against the defendants.”
While saying the trial had slipped into more of a legal groove, Buta said it was still far away “from international standards when it comes to legal proceedings”.
“We still have not seen qualitative improvement in the conduct of the proceedings.”
In the immediate previous two hearings, Saddam and Awad Ahmad al-Bander, the former chief judge of the revolutionary court and deputy head of Saddam’s office, dismissed charges that they had massacred the Dujail villagers.
During the trial’s April 5 and 6 hearings, Saddam and Bander categorically dismissed evidence, including testimonies of witnesses, that chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Mussawi said linked them to the Dujail killings.
Saddam bluntly charged that the witnesses presented against him were bribed and coerced by the prosecution.
Saying prosecution documents linking him to the executions were forged, Saddam defended his decision to try the Dujail suspects, who allegedly were later executed.
“This was my decision as the president. I had the right to question the judgement, but I was convinced of the evidence against them.”
The killings followed an attempt on Saddam’s life in the village.
Saddam also dismissed Mussawi’s attempts to show identity cards of some Dujail suspects showing they were minors at the time of their executions.
“These documents are forged. I have never done anything to a youngster,” Saddam said.
“All these documents are forged and can be purchased on the streets of Baghdad. I can purchase a card like that saying the judge Rauf [Abdel Rahman] is 25-years-old.”
Saddam and others — if proved guilty — face the death penalty in the Dujail case.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi High Tribunal is also laying charges of genocide for the first time against the toppled president and six others over the Anfal campaign against Kurds that left around 100 000 people dead in 1987/1988. – AFP