Saddam complains jail treatment, blasts court
Foreign Desk Report
BAGHDAD—Saddam Hussein harangued the judge at the second session of his
trial on Monday before it was adjourned to grant co-defendants time to
find new counsel after one of their lawyers was killed and another fled
Iraq. After less than three hours of hearings, including videotaped
testimony from a witness who has since died, Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin
ordered a one-week adjournment until December 5, just 10 days before
Iraq holds parliamentary elections.
Amin cited the need to find new representation for former Vice President
Taha Yassin Ramadan and former intelligence chief Barzan al-Tikriti.
Gunmen killed one of their lawyers and another fled the country in fear
after Saddam’s trial opened in October. Another defense lawyer was
killed separately. The timing of the next session may open the
government to criticism that it is seeking political benefit from the
trial by airing the deeds of the former regime days before Iraqis vote.
With violence expected to surge ahead of the polls, security conditions
may be even more precarious when the trial resumes.
Hours before Monday’s session, a mortar landed in the “green zone”
compound where the fortified court is located. There was also a spate of
kidnappings and killings in the capital, with four foreign aid workers
abducted and at least two British Muslims found dead after gunmen
attacked their vehicle. Monday’s session began with Saddam displaying
the same defiance he showed at the opening of the trial on October 19,
when proceedings were adjourned for 40 days. Saddam, dressed in a white
shirt, dark jacket and carrying a Koran, arrived late and then upbraided
the judge when asked why. “They brought me here to the door and I was
handcuffed. They cannot bring in the defendant in handcuffs,” Saddam
rejoined. Amin ordered the former president and his co-defendants to be
unshackled by their guards before they entered the courtroom. Saddam
complained he had had to walk up four flights of stairs because of a
broken elevator in the courthouse. “I will tell the police about this,”
Amin told him in the cool, polite tone he maintained during several
tirades by the former president on the first day of the trial.
“I don’t want you to tell them, I want you to order them,” Saddam
replied hotly. “They are invaders and occupiers and you have to order
them.” Saddam then argued with the judge about his rights and his
jailers’ action in taking away his pen and paper. As his voice rose
heatedly, television footage of the proceedings broke away. The images
are being broadcast by U.S. company Court TV with a 30-minute delay to
allow officials to censor the footage.
Following the killings of the defense lawyers, security for the trial is
extremely tight. TV footage is not showing the faces of any defense
lawyers and only one of the five judges. Tikriti, one of Saddam’s three
younger half-brothers, told the judge he had cancer and that Iraq’s
current president and prime minister had agreed he could receive medical
treatment outside the prison where he is held.
When the judge said he had not seen any request for this, Tikriti said:
“This is indirect death.” Saddam and his co-accused are charged with
crimes against humanity in relation to the deaths of 148 men from the
town of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after an attempt to kill him in 1982.
All defendants have pleaded not guilty. They could face death by hanging
if convicted. Early in the session, Judge Amin agreed to let former U.S.
Attorney-General Ramsey Clark and former Qatari Justice Minister Najeeb
al-Nauimi join Saddam’s defense team as advisers.
Nauimi then challenged the court’s legitimacy and said the trial should
not proceed until the safety of defense lawyers was assured. The judge
said the court would respond in writing. Amin instructed prosecutors to
present evidence, apparently dismissing defense motions for a further
delay. Grainy sepia-coloured video footage shot by a cameraman of
Saddam’s in July 1982, on the day the assassination attempt occurred in
Dujail, was then shown to the court. A clip that shows Saddam himself
questioning suspects by the roadside was played several times. Saddam
can be heard telling aides to “take them away separately and interrogate
them.”
Then the court saw videotaped testimony given by a witness in hospital
late last month, just days before he died of cancer. The witness, Wadah
al-Sheikh, was an intelligence officer under Saddam and was sent to
Dujail to investigate the attack. In his sworn testimony, read out by
Amin, Sheikh described how he had gone to the town and found a few
bodies in the palm groves near where the assault on Saddam’s motorcade
took place. He said had calculated the seven to 12 assailants had been
involved, based on the number of bullet casings at the scene. |
