The trial of Saddam Hussein and his associates on crimes against humanity resumed on Monday with all eight defendants present and a resumption of defence-witness testimony, this time for one of the more minor accused.
Presiding Judge Rauf Abdel Rahman began the session by announcing that the court would hear testimony from two witnesses for defendant Ali Dayih Ali, a minor Ba’athist official from Dujail.
Witnesses on Ali’s behalf originally appeared on May 15 and it was originally believed the remainder of the defence testimony was going to focus on the more high-profile defendants.
The judge added that 57 defence witnesses have appeared to date.
The new testimony represents a break from the dramatic events of last week when witnesses on behalf of Saddam and other high-profile defendants claimed that chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Mussawi had offered money to potential witnesses.
Saddam and his seven co-defendants are being tried on charges of crimes against humanity, including murder and torture over the crackdown on the Shi’ite village of Dujail in 1982, and face execution by hanging if found guilty.
The direct attacks on the prosecution represented a marked departure for the defence strategy, which previously had provided character witnesses to defend their clients or say the crackdown was a valid response to an assassination attempt on Saddam.
Witness testimony for minor Dujaili Ba’athists like Ali, however, has been more focused on just distancing them from the crackdown.
Following the adjournment of the trial Wednesday, several witnesses were detained.
Witnesses also charged last Tuesday that the prosecutor had visited Dujail in 2004 to drum up testimony against Saddam — and they also claimed many of the alleged victims of the crackdown are still alive.
The prosecution says hundreds of villagers were rounded up after the assassination bid, many were tortured and 148 executed.
On Wednesday the defence produced a video showing the prosecutor at an event there in 2004.
Al-Mussawi responded denying that the person in the video was him and produced a Dawa Party official who looked like him who had actually attended the event.
The prosecutor then struck back at his accusers, calling for the witness testimony of the past two days to be disallowed.
Al-Mussawi said he would file a complaint against lead Saddam defence counsel Khalil al-Dulaimi and the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya channel that originally aired the footage from the Dujail rally.
United States officials would not confirm the number of defence witnesses detained, but the Dubai-based satellite network Al-Arabiya said four witnesses were being held.
”They are being detained for an investigation so that they remain in Baghdad to ask them questions about their testimonies and the allegations that prosecutor Jaafar al-Mussawi was at this celebration in Dujail,” said a US official close to the court.
The trial has been marred by the murder of two defence lawyers and the January resignation of the first chief judge, as well as frequent outbursts by Saddam and his co-defendants.
Once the defence witness testimony is complete, defence lawyers will give their closing statements, followed by defendants’ final statements, which will mark the end of the trial.
The proceedings could conclude by the end of June, a US official close to the court said last week, with a verdict coming as early as July.
The trial adjourned until next week — AFP
