Experts authenticate Saddam's signature on documents
Handwriting experts authenticated Saddam Hussein’s signatures on more documents related to an Iraq crackdown on Shiites in the 1980s, the chief judge in his Baghdad trial said today.
Among the documents was apparently an order approving death sentences for 148 Shiites.
Saddam and his seven co-defendants were in the courtroom in the latest session of the trial today, as chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman read a report by handwriting experts on two documents said to be signed by Saddam.
The experts confirmed the signatures were the former Iraqi leader’s, Abdel-Rahman said.
The experts’ report did not give details on the documents, but one of them was dated June 16, 1984. That is the same date of a memo approving the death sentences of the Shiites, presented by prosecutors earlier in the six-month trial.
Saddam and his co-defendants are on trial for the deaths of the 148 Shiites and the imprisonment of hundreds of others in a crackdown launched following an assassination attempt against Saddam in 1982.
In a session of the trial on Monday, the experts said they had authenticated Saddam’s signature on a 1982 memo approving rewards for six intelligence agents involved in the crackdown.
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