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Saddam trial becoming like a TV Sitcom
16.2.2006
By HAMZA HENDAWI
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It's
supposed to be a serious affair, but after three
months and 12 hearings, the Saddam Hussein trial has
become like a TV sitcom steeped in Iraqi pop culture
and local vernacular.
Interest in the trial has
spiked since a new tough chief judge, Raouf
Abdel-Rahman, took over last month and
cracked down on the chaos that had marked the early
hearings, which began Oct. 19.
Saddam and Barzan Ibrahim, his half brother and
co-defendant, try their best to unsettle the stern
new judge, using tactics from insulting his
nonexistent mustache to showing up in long
underwear.
Proceedings are broadcast on state television with a
20-minute delay. Many Iraqis who cannot follow the
hearings during business hours watch in the evenings
on satellite stations, some of which show the day's
full hearing.
Perceptions of the trial among Iraqis depend in
large part on their sectarian affiliations.
Many Shiites, long oppressed by Saddam's Sunni
Arab-dominated regime, believe the ex-president's
execution is already overdue. To many Sunni Arabs,
Saddam and his seven co-defendants are persecuted
men.
Yet, Iraqis are united over one thing - the trial's
entertainment value.
"The toughness of the new judge has turned the whole
thing into a farce," said Ismail Ibrahim, a
45-year-old Sunni engineer who watches the hearings
at work. "It's funny."
Hatem Abbas Khalaf, a health worker from the holy
Shiite city of Karbala, said he finds the whole
affair "entertaining."
"It makes me gloat over the predicament of Saddam
and his associates," he said.
Saddam's daughter even chipped in with her own
critique of what goes on in the courtroom.
"This judge Raouf is the strangest cartoon character
I have ever seen in my life," Raghad Saddam Hussein
has told Al Arabiya television Tuesday from Amman,
Jordan.
Over two sessions Monday and Tuesday, Saddam and
Ibrahim dominated the proceedings with some vintage
courtroom theatrics. But in a series of instances,
they appeared to break new ground. |
Chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman presides over the
trial of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and
seven co-defendants
Photo: AP
Former dictator Saddam Hussein
Photo : AFP
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"May your mustache be cursed," Saddam shouted at
Abdel-Rahman.
It's a great insult among Iraq's Arab majority to
curse a man's mustache, considered to be a symbol of
honor among adult males. Abdel-Rahman is a Kurd and
sports no mustache.
In another exchange, Abdel-Rahman tried to restore
order Tuesday by banging his gavel.
"Hit your own head with that gavel," shouted Saddam,
who insisted on addressing the court while seated,
ignoring the judge's angry protests.
Ibrahim, Saddam's one-time intelligence chief, told
Abdel-Rahman on Monday that he missed the judge's
predecessor, Rizqar Mohammed Amin, another Kurd who
stepped down in January amid charges that he did not
do enough to rein in Saddam and Ibrahim.
"I will write a letter to judge Rizqar thanking
him," Ibrahim told Abdel-Rahman.
"'Afiyah', Rizqar," said Saddam, using the Iraqi
Arabic slang for "bravo," a word Saddam often used
to praise his officers before the 2003 U.S.-led
invasion.
Saddam, Ibrahim and the other six defendants are on
trial for the killing of nearly 150 Shiites after
the former president survived an assassination
attempt in 1982 in the mainly Shiite town of Dujail
north of Baghdad. The eight face death by hanging of
convicted.
Ibrahim, who once enjoyed a reputation as a
womanizer, was by far the more provocative in this
week's sessions.
This week, he showed up in his long underwear to
protest Abdel-Rahman's handling of the hearings. He
sat on the floor of the defendants' pen with his
back to the judges for most of Monday's hearing.
On Tuesday, he scolded the judge for ordering him to
be quiet.
"Don't tell me to shut up with this hand gesture,"
Ibrahim snapped. "I am a person like you, if not
even better."
He insisted on calling a witness "comrade" - the
title used by members of Saddam's Baath party.
"Don't call him comrade. Call him witness number
one," Abdel-Rahman said.
"You call him what you like and I call him what I
like," Ibrahim replied.
Later, Ibrahim suggested to Abdel-Rahman that many
of his tribunal's employees worked for the
intelligence agency which Saddam's half brother once
headed.
"I just want to explain to you a few things so you
can calm down and help yourself," Ibrahim told the
judge.
"This court is calm," Abdel-Rahman replied.
The most bizarre moment of Tuesday's hearing came
when Ibrahim briefly abandoned his native Arabic and
began to speak in English, explaining the location
of his detention facility.
"I don't understand English, please speak to me in
Arabic," said a perplexed Abdel-Rahman.
AP
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