Baghdad

As the stormy trial of ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein reaches its halfway point, the nature of the prosecution case is finally beginning to emerge, but grave concerns over the court’s procedure and impartiality remain. The court adjourned on Wednesday for three weeks while the three-judge panel reexamines the evidence and drafts specific charges against the eight co-defendants.

Saddam Hussein’s half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, on Wednesday denied involvement in mass reprisals ordered against a village after the ousted Iraqi leader escaped assassination there in 1982. ”I arrested no one, it was the security services that were in charge” of operations in Dujail, Barzan said as the trial of Saddam and seven co-accused resumed before the Iraqi high tribunal.

In the past 24 hours, police have found the bodies of at least 85 men killed by gunfire execution-style in a gruesome wave of apparent sectarian killing, the interior ministry said on Tuesday. They include at least 27 bodies stacked in a mass grave in an eastern Shi’ite neighbourhood.

A suicide truck bomb ripped through a line of vehicles waiting at a checkpoint on Friday in Fallujah and killed at least seven civilians, while authorities in the capital discovered the bodies of six more men who were blindfolded, handcuffed and shot in the back of the head, police said. A powerful bomb hit a United States tank in east Baghdad.

Gunmen wearing commando uniforms of the Shi’ite-dominated interior ministry have stormed an Iraqi security company that relies heavily on Sunni ex-military men from the Saddam regime, spiriting away 50 hostages. The ministry has denied involvement and called the operation a ”terrorist act”.

Budding artists at Baghdad’s School of Music and Ballet might dream of fame, but few would care to boast of their talents in violence-racked Iraq where religious extremists frown on music and condemn dancing. The school, which was looted after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, is tucked away behind the main Iraqi army base in the capital, one that has been targetted at least five times by car bombers.

Deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein on Wednesday accepted he ordered the destruction of orchards as a reprisal for an assassination bid in a Shi’ite town, his first such admission in the turbulent trial. It was claimed Saddam pardoned two Shi’ites who were to have been executed for the assassination attempt in the town of Dujail.

Iraqi prosecutors submitted to the court trying Saddam Hussein on Tuesday what they said was an execution order signed by the former Iraqi dictator, as his lawyers once again stormed out of the tribunal. Documents were presented linking Saddam to the trial and execution of 148 villagers from Dujail, north of Baghdad.

The turbulent trial of Saddam Hussein and seven former cohorts resumes on Tuesday with the ousted dictator ending a hunger strike and his lawyers considering lifting their boycott of the court. After a hearing on February 14, Saddam announced that he was on a hunger strike amid chaotic scenes.

At least 21 people were killed when a car-bomb ripped through a mostly-Shi’ite market in southern Baghdad on Tuesday as visiting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw appealed for Iraqi unity. The evening explosion devastated the Abu Dshir general market in the capital’s southern district of Dura as people went about their evening shopping, also wounding 27, police said.

The United States ambassador to Iraq warned Iraqi politicians on Monday they risk a loss of American support if they do not establish a genuine national unity government, saying the US will not invest its resources in institutions run by sectarians. Meanwhile, at least 24 people were killed by bombings in Baghdad and elsewhere.

Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein on Tuesday told the court trying him on charges of crimes against humanity that he and his co-defendants have launched a hunger strike. ”We have been on a hunger strike for three days,” Saddam declared as the trial resumed for its 12th hearing since its opened in October. ”Long live the great Arab nation” and ”long live the mujahideen,” he shouted.

A feisty Saddam Hussein sparred with the judge in his trial on charges of crimes against humanity on Monday after telling the court he had been dragged back before the tribunal against his wishes. ”This is not a court this is a game,” Saddam shouted, pounding on a podium in the dock.

The trial of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and his former cohorts on charges of crimes against humanity was adjourned to February 13 after all defendants boycotted Thursday’s hearing. The absence of Saddam and his seven co-accused was the latest setback to mar the unruly trial since it opened in a blaze of publicity in October

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and all the high-profile accused on Wednesday refused to attend the latest session of their trial, as the embattled tribunal finally completed the first phase of testimony. Neither Saddam nor his defence team and none of the three other well-known defendants attended the hearing.

Saddam Hussein’s chief lawyer said on Thursday that the deposed Iraqi president wants United States President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair tried on allegations of committing war crimes. Khalil al-Dulaimi said Saddam wants to sue both leaders, along with US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for allegedly authorising the use of weapons such as depleted uranium artillery shells.

Insurgents carried out two dramatic ambushes on Wednesday, killing 11 people, including two American civilians, in a roadside bombing in Basra and an attack on an Iraqi convoy in Baghdad. Meanwhile, Iraqi officials expressed hope that American hostage Jill Carroll would eventually be released.