Witness in Saddam Hussein trial gives testimony

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A former Iraqi intelligence officer has
given testimony in the trial of Saddam Hussein and seven
co-defendants from his hospital bed, the special tribunal
trying them said on Monday.

A tribunal statement said Wadaah al-Sheikh gave testimony
to three judges on Sunday about “the crime of Dujail.” It did
not elaborate.

The defendants, who also include former vice president Taha
Yassin Ramadan and intelligence chief Barzan al-Tikriti, are
charged with killing 148 men in the 1980s after an
assassination attempt on the former Iraqi president in Dujail
village.

Sheikh, who is seriously ill from cancer, was a senior
officer in the investigations and evidence unit at the feared
Hakmiya intelligence building in Baghdad in 1982 when Barzan
was the chief of intelligence, the statement said.

Defense lawyers refused to attend the session with
al-Sheikh despite security guarantees, said the statement.

The lawyers have not said why they refused to attend the
session but the Iraqi Bar Association on Sunday urged lawyers
to stop working with the special court until the murder of a
member of the defense team is solved.

Saadoun Janabi, who was bundled out of his Baghdad office
last Thursday by heavily armed men, was found dead of gunshot
wounds hours later.

Saddam and his co-defendants, who faced the opening day of
trial on October 19, could face the death penalty if found
guilty.