A defiant Saddam Hussein, who has been receiving medical care for his hunger strike to protest against his trial for crimes against humanity, said on Wednesday that he was brought to court against his will.
The defence team for the former leader and seven co-accused boycotted the latest session in a trial approaching its conclusion.
”It was not my choice to come to court,” Saddam, wearing a dark suit and holding a Qu’ran, told the judge.
”I wrote you a petition clarifying that I don’t want to come to court, but they brought me against my will … I have been on a hunger strike since July 8.”
Saddam (69) was being fed through a tube on Sunday after 16 days of his hunger strike to protest what he sees as an unfair trial for crimes against humanity but despite losing some weight the former Iraqi leader looked healthy and behaved angrily.
Saddam and his co-defendants are charged with the killing of 148 Shi’ite men and teenagers after an attempt on his life in the town of Dujail in 1982.
‘Half my lawyers were killed’
His hunger strike and the boycott staged by his lawyers have further tarnished a trial that has witnessed the killing of three defence lawyers and the resignation of the first chief judge to protest what he said was government interference.
”Half my lawyers were killed. Is it too much for you to protect them?,” Saddam asked chief judge Raouf Abdel Rahman.
When the ousted president’s court-appointed lawyer was about to read his closing argument, Saddam interrupted him: ”The argument was written by a Canadian American agent.”
Saddam’s lawyers have accused the US military of force feeding him to end the strike.
”In hospital they were feeding me through my nose to my stomach,” said Saddam.
”I reject standing before this court and letting it decide what it likes. We don’t recognise a government appointed by occupation or this court.”
The hunger strike did not take the edge off Saddam’s trademark defiance, which has been exhibited in tirades throughout the trial in a court house in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, home to some of his former palaces. – Reuters