The chief judge in the trial of Saddam Hussein ruled on Wednesday that signatures linking the ousted Iraqi leader to a massacre in the 1980s were ”authentic”.
Shortly after the trial resumed following a two-day recess, Judge Rauf Abdel Rahman said ”the experts verified these documents, and the signatures of Saddam Hussein were found to be authentic”.
Less than three hours later, Abdel Rahman again adjourned the trial, until April 24, so that the signatures of co-defendant Mizhar Abdullah Ruweid could be more closely examined.
Saddam, dressed in a grey suit and white shirt, took his seat in the dock as Wednesday’s session began, with his seven co-defendants also in court.
The spotlight remained on his purported signature on documents linked to the execution of 148 Shi’ites from the village of Dujail in the mid-1980s following a failed bid to assassinate him.
Saddam sat silently while his half-brother and co-defendant, Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, again dismissed the report of the handwriting experts.
Describing it as a work of the prosecutor’s imagination, Barzan said ”the comparison process is like the plot of a film and this plot was executed by a director — the almighty director prosecutor Jaafar al-Mussawi, to give more credibility for his scenario to the court”.
Pointing to the other defendants, Barzan said ”they are innocents … Unfortunately the prosecutor is clearly biased; he is using any means to make the accused guilty.”
On Monday, Abdel Rahman had adjourned the trial after only an hour to allow the prosecution more time to prove the signatures were those of Saddam and Tikriti.
Chief prosecutor Mussawi had presented a report by three handwriting experts that he said proved those claims.
Saddam lawyer Khalil Dulaimi contested the report, demanding that a neutral body make a judgement on the authenticity of the signatures. He renewed those calls on Wednesday.
Khamis al-Obaidi, another defence lawyer, on Monday said the experts were interior ministry employees ”and not neutral. They are against the former regime.”
The documents came from the Revolutionary Command Council, the former regime’s highest decision-making body.
In two earlier hearings, Saddam acknowledged that he had ordered the trial of Dujail villagers suspected of plotting to assassinate him, but stopped short of admitting he was responsible for their executions.
The prosecution has presented volumes of documents linking the former president and others to the killings, including signed letters ordering the villagers to be tried and jailed and later allegedly executed.
The deposed president has dismissed this evidence and charged that the prosecution’s witnesses had been bribed or coerced.
The trial began in October, with Saddam and Tikriti causing pandemonium with their rants and jeers against the judge and prosecutor.
The case had also been marred by the murder of two defence lawyers and the January resignation of the first chief judge, who displeased the government by not clamping down on Saddam and his outbursts.
Since March, the case has moved into a quieter phase, avoiding the earlier walkouts and boycotts by defendants and their lawyers.
But international human rights experts claim that the trial continues to be conducted well below international legal standards.
After the Dujail trial, Saddam and six others will also face charges of genocide over the 1988 Anfal campaign against Kurds that left as many as 100 000 people dead. — AFP
