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Saddam genocide trial adjourns until
November 27-
8.11.2006
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BAGHDAD, November
8, -- Saddam Hussein's genocide trial has been
adjourned for nearly three weeks, with the
prosecution having ended its eyewitness testimony
and preparing to call experts to the stand.
The adjournment until November 27 will also give the
defence team, which widely boycotted Wednesday's
hearing, to submit its own witness lists.
Saddam was in court with his six co-defendants to
hear more testimony from Kurds recounting how his
forces allegedly swept through the northern region
of Kurdistan in 1988, killing thousands of people.
Prosecutors say the so-called Anfal campaign was a
genocidal massacre of 182,000 Kurdish civilians.
Saddam and his alleged henchmen insist it was a
legitimate counter-insurgency operation against
separatists at a time of war with Iran.
Saddam and the other accused, including his cousin
Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali", face
the death penalty if convicted. He and Majid are the
only defendants facing charges of genocide.
Four prosecution witnesses testified on Wednesday.
Asia Tahir, 64, described how she saw a village
bombed as she went there to collect a bride for a
man from her village in August 1988.
When she and four others reached the village, they
found the inhabitants in an "awkward situation"
coughing up phlegm and mucus.
"Later on we also had the same symptoms, so we asked
the father of the bride to hand her over quickly
before the warplanes came back," she said.
She returned to her village only to find that it too
had been bombed and that residents were rushing to
the Turkish border.
Wearing a long scarf designed with pictures of
Kurdistan flags, Tahir said her village was later
burned by Iraqi soldiers.
Her husband and a number of relatives went missing
after the attack, and dozens of children died of
disease, she said.
Among the other witnesses, a former Kurdish
peshmerga fighter described how his village was
bombed by eight warplanes on August 24, 1988.
Sabir al-Duri, one of the accused and a former
director of intelligence, cross-examined him and
accused the peshmergas of working for the Iranians.
Citing a document obtained from the Anfal papers,
Duri said the Iranians had a presence in the area
where the witness used to operate with his unit in
the northern Kurdish Dohuk region. |
Former dictator Saddam Hussein (1 from top) , his
cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali"
as (2 from top) with his six co-defendants |
Duri said the document belonged to the then Iraqi
army and contained details of messages between the
peshmergas and the Iranians asking the Kurdish
fighters to gather information on the army.
At the beginning of the day's session, defence
attorney Badie Arief charged that documents had been
stolen from his office in the heavily fortified
Green Zone.
"I demand the opening of an investigation with the
American side because the area is guarded by the
Americans who would shoot anybody who comes near,"
he said.
Aref was the only defence lawyer in court, with the
rest of the team boycotting the proceedings. The
defendants' interests are now being overseen by
court-appointed attorneys.
Aref, defending Farhan al-Juburi, former
intelligence chief for the eastern bureau, also
demanded that President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, be
subpoenaed to testify.
But Juburi said that would not be necessary.
"I personally heard President Talabani talking on
Sawa radio that he is ready to testify if General
Farhan Saleh al-Juburi asked him to do so. I do
appreciate the president's position and his
suffering due to his position. So his talk on Sawa
radio is enough for me."
Radio Sawa is a US-financed station broadcasting in
the Middle East.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told BBC
television that Saddam could be executed before the
end of the year after he was sentenced Sunday to
hang, in a separate trial.
He was convicted of ordering the execution of 148
Shiites from the village of Dujail in the 1980s
following a failed bid to assassinate him.
"We are waiting for the decision of the appeals
court, and if it confirms the sentence, it will be
the government's responsibility to carry it out,"
Maliki said.
"We would like the whole world to respect Iraq's
judicial will," he said. "I expect the execution to
happen before the end of this year."
AFP
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