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Saddam silenced by grisly photographs of
victims
22.8.2006
By Oliver Poole in Basra, August 22, 2006
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Even
Saddam Hussein was silenced yesterday when, on the
first day of a new trial on charges of genocide
against Iraq's Kurds, the court saw a photograph of
the skeleton of a baby clutching a milk bottle.
The body was found in a mass grave, lying beside its
mother. The woman had clutched the child to her
chest as she was killed, the prosecution said, and
fell into a shallow grave with hundreds of other
victims.
The prosecutor said that all of the dead were among
the 182,000 Kurds killed by troops loyal to Saddam's
Ba'ath Party in a military operation in 1987 - 88.
The systematic killing of Kurdish civilians to
suppress a separatist uprising was the aim, the
court was told.
"It is time for humanity to know the magnitude and
scale of the crimes committed against the people of
Kurdistan," said Munqith al-Faroon, the lead
prosecutor, as more photographs of dead women and
children were displayed. "Entire villages were
razed, as if killing the people was not enough.
Wives waited for their husbands, families waited for
their children to return - but to no avail."
The trial is the second in which Saddam faces
charges of war crimes. The first, which focused on
the death of 148 Shias following an attempt to
assassinate him in 1982, ended last month and a
verdict is expected in October.
Saddam is charged with genocide for attacking Iraq's
entire Kurdish minority. If found guilty, he is
likely to be hanged. The ex-president looked calm
and confident when he entered the court.
Six co-defendants followed him. They were :
1 - Ali Hassan al-Majid (Saddam's cousin known as
"Chemical Ali" because of his alleged use of
chemical weapons during the Anfal campaign),
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Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and six
members of his Baath party
Photo : AFP| AP |
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2-
Sabir al-Douri (Saddam's director of military
intelligence who is accused of planning and
executing the campaign)
3- Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai (the field commander
of Task Force Anfal)
4- Taher Tawfiq al-Ani (the former governor of Mosul
and head of the Northern Affairs Committee)
5- Hussein Rashid Mohammed al-Tikriti (former deputy
director of operations for the Iraqi armed forces
and a member of Saddam's Tikriti clan),
6- Farhan Mutlaq Saleh (a former head in Saddam's
feared military intelligence).
All the defendants except Saddam pleaded not guilty.
He refused to answer and challenged the court's
legitimacy in a familiar display of bravado.
Telegraph co.uk
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