The chief judge ejected Saddam Hussein and a co-defendant punched one of the guards and denounced prosecutors as pimps and traitors during the toppled Iraq leader’s genocide trial on Tuesday.
The government criticised the United States-backed court after the chaotic scenes. Last month it sacked the previous presiding judge because it believed he was too soft with Saddam and had lost his neutrality.
”Generally, the government is not pleased with the performance of the court,” Sunni Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zobaie told Reuters.
”This is not a court but a battle.”
Judge Mohammed al-Ureybi ordered a closed session on Tuesday after Saddam’s co-defendant and former military commander Hussein Rasheed was escorted by guards from the courtroom.
When proceedings resumed more than an hour later, the dock was empty.
Saddam and six others are being tried over the Anfal (Spoils of War) military campaign against Iraq’s ethnic Kurds in the 1980s.
Al-Ureybi, who has taken a tough line with defendants, ordered Saddam to leave the courtroom after cutting off his microphone when he began a speech after the first Kurdish witness had finished her testimony.
It was the fourth time in the last five sessions Saddam had been ejected.
Ali Hassan al-Majeed, Saddam’s cousin who is also known as ”Chemical Ali”, said he wanted a swift end to the case.
”I want my sentence to be passed now and I wish it to be the death penalty so I can finish with this court,” he told the judge.
‘Judgement Day’
The stormy session overshadowed graphic testimony.
The first witness spoke on condition of anonymity and said conditions in several detention centres where she was held with her children reminded her of ”Judgment Day”.
”One of my relatives was with me and gave birth to a child in the toilet … we placed the baby in a rough sack and cut the umbilical cord with a piece of broken glass,” she said.
She told the court she was arrested after Iraqi forces took her husband away in the mountains where they had fled bombing on their village in April 1988.
The woman said she never saw her husband again.
A second anonymous witness told the court rape was frequent in prisons and the bodies of those who died in captivity were fed to the dogs.
Saddam (69), al-Majeed and five former commanders face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their role in Anfal, which prosecutors say left 182 000 ethnic Kurds dead or missing. Saddam and al-Majeed face the additional genocide charges. — Reuters