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Witness in Saddam Hussein trial gives testimony

Posted on: Monday, 24 October 2005, 05:54 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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