Saddam warns judge he will be held accountable

“I have exercised my constitutional prerogatives after I had been the target of an armed attack.”

Saddam described the testimony as “organised lies".

Addressing judge, Saddam said: “When the revolution of the heroic Iraq arrives, you will be held accountable.”

The judge replied: “This is an insult to the court. We are searching for the truth.”

“Is that what you call a search for the truth?” Saddam replied, in apparent reference to the witnesses.

Saddam said he returned all of the lands that had been impounded shortly after the assassination attempt along with compensation to area residents. He also received a delegation from Dujail town, whose members apologised for what happend.

“Wasn’t it the right of Saddam Hussein to have his agents pursue those who shot at him?” Saddam asked the judge.

Co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam’s half brother, and the lawyers challenged the testimony of the second witness because he was 10 years old in 1982.

“This witness when he was 10 needed his mother’s help to go to the toilet,” Barazan said.

Earlier in the proceedings Saddam declared that: “I am not afraid of execution”.

The first witnesses took the stand and testified that the former president’s agents carried out random arrests, torture and killings.

Saddam suggested that the first witness against him needed psychiatric treatment.

The outburst was one of several by Saddam or his co-defendants during the session that also saw a brief walkout by his defence lawyers.

Following the witness’ testimony, Saddam defended his actions and told the court that he understood the pressures upon it in his trial. He and his seven co-defendants could be executed if convicted on the charges stemming from the deaths of more than 140 Shiites in 1982.

“When I speak, I speak like your brother,” he said.

“Your brother in Iraq and your brother in the nation. I am not afraid of execution. I realise there is pressure on you and I regret that I have to confront one of my sons. But I’m not doing it for myself. I’m doing it for Iraq. I’m not defending myself. But I am defending you.”

He added that: “I want you to be the shooters and the swords against the enemy army.”

When the first witness, Ahmed Hassan Mohammed spoke out, Saddam told him: “Do not interrupt me, son.”

“If it’s ever established that Saddam Hussein laid a hand on any Iraqi, then everything that witness said is correct,” he said.

He also told the court that he “would like (the witness) to be examined by an independent medical institution.”

It was the third court session in the trial of Saddam and seven co-defendants - accused in the 1982 killing of more than 140 Shiites after an assassination attempt against the president in Dujail – where Saddam at times appeared to be in control of the court as much as the presiding judge.

Earlier, the former president’s lawyers briefly walked out of court after the judge refused to allow statements by foreign lawyers including former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin at first said only Saddam’s chief lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, could speak.

Amin said the defence should submit its motion in writing and warned that if the defence walked out then the court would appoint replacement lawyers.

After the defence lawyers left, Saddam, shaking his right hand, told the judge: “You are imposing lawyers on us. They are imposed lawyers. The court is imposed by itself. We reject that.”

Saddam and his half brother Barazan Ibrahim then chanted “Long live Iraq, long live the Arab state.”

Ibrahim stood up and shouted: “Why don’t you just execute us and get rid of all of this!”

When the judge explained that he was ruling in accordance with the law, Saddam replied: “This is a law made by America and does not reflect Iraqi sovereignty.”

After the walkout and a 90-minute recess to resolve the issue, the court reconvened and Amin allowed Clark and ex-Qatari Justice Minister Najib al-Nueimi to speak on the questions of the legitimacy of the tribunal and safety of the lawyers.

“Reconciliation is essential,” Clark told the court.

“This trial can divide or heal. Unless it is seen as absolutely fair, and fair in fact, it will divide rather than reconcile Iraq.”

At that point, the judge reminded Clark that he was to speak only about the security guarantees for the defence lawyers – two of whom have been assassinated since the trial began on October 19.

Clark then said all parties were entitled to protection, and the measures offered to protect the defence and their families were “absurd.” Clark said that without such protection, the judicial system would collapse.

Al-Nueimi then spoke about the legitimacy issue, arguing that court is not independent and was in fact set up under the US-led occupation rather than by a legal Iraqi government. He said the language of the statute was unchanged from that promulgated by the former top US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, and was therefore “illegitimate.”

After the lawyers spoke, the first witness to take the stand, Ahmed Hassan Mohammed, began his emotional but often rambling testimony. He said that after an assassination attempt on Saddam, security agencies took people of all ages from age 14 to over age 70. They were tortured for 70 days at the intelligence headquarters in Baghdad before being moved to Abu Ghraib prison where the abuse continued, he said.

“There were mass arrests. Women and men. Even if a child was one-day-old they used to tell his parents, ‘Bring him with you,“’ Mohammed said. He said he was taken to a security centre where “I saw bodies of people from Dujail.”

“They were martyrs I knew,” Mohammed said, giving the name of the nine whose bodies were there.

The first witness earlier exchanged insults with Saddam’s half brother, telling him “you killed a 14-year-old boy.”

“To hell,” the half brother, Ibrahim, replied.

“You and your children go to hell,” the witness replied.

The judge then asked them to avoid such exchanges.

As the testimony continued, Saddam’s lawyers objected that someone in the visitors’ gallery was making threatening gestures and should be removed. Ibrahim leapt to his feet, spat in the direction of the gallery, and shouted: “These are criminals.”

The judge ordered the person removed from the gallery and questioned.

“There was random arrests in the streets, all the forces of the (Baath) party, and Thursday became ‘Judgment Day’ and Dujail has become a battle front,” the witness said, sometime fighting back tears. “Shootings started and nobody could leave or enter Dujail. At night, intelligence agents arrived headed by Barazan Ibrahim.”

Ibrahim interrupted him at one point, saying: “I am a patriot and I was the head of the intelligence service of Iraq.”

At the start of today’s session, Saddam walked into the court with a smile, carrying a copy of the Koran, Islam’s holy book, and greeted everyone there.

Most of the defendants and several of the defence lawyers, including Clark, al-Dulaimi and al-Nueimi, stood up out of respect when Saddam walked in.

The trial will resume tomorrow.