Saddam returns to court, slams Interior Ministry

By Mussab al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Saddam Hussein returned to court on
Wednesday and immediately accused the Interior Ministry of
killing and torturing thousands of Iraqis, remarks likely to
inflame sectarian tensions.

The toppled leader, who could face death by hanging,
remained defiant one day after the court announced he would
face new charges of genocide against the ethnic Kurdish
population in the late 1980s.

He may be in the dock again for another trial as early as
next month, potentially leading to a drawn-out, complex legal
process in a country where most people want closure on a bloody
past and a future free of sectarian bloodshed.

Iraqi politicians and court officials are already sending
mixed signals on whether he would be executed if found guilty
in one trial, or be tried on new charges in another first.

The man whose word was law in Iraq seemed unfazed,
occasionally smiling as he maneuvered around the judge’s orders
to avoid political statements.

“If you want to put the whale into the net, which I don’t
think you do, you have to tell the truth,” he told chief
prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi.

“Don’t be upset with me. I am older than you and I have a
higher rank and better history and yet I am not upset with
you.”

Saddam refused to sign documents, saying that only an
international court would be fair, and denounced the Interior
Ministry as he faced cross examination for the first time.

“It’s the side that kills thousands in the street and
tortures them …,” he said, criticizing the Shi’ite-run
ministry, which is accused of running death squads by the Sunni
Arabs who were dominant when Saddam ruled Iraq.

When the judge interrupted him, Saddam said: “If you’re
scared of the Interior Minister, he doesn’t scare my dog.”

Interior Minister Bayan Jabor is a hate figure among
Sunnis, who accuse him of waging a sectarian war against them
and allowing Shi’ite militias to run hit squads with impunity.
He denies the accusations.

Saddam was the only defendant in the chamber, which he has
dominated with tirades questioning the court’s legitimacy and
urging Iraqis to rise up against U.S. occupation troops.

After chief judge Raouf Abdel Rahman dismissed Saddam’s
comments that it was a trial under occupation, one of his
lawyers pointed across the court room to an American.

Abdel Rahman threatened to arrest her for 24 hours and then
cut off the sound system when Saddam started to recite poetry.

GENOCIDE CHARGES

Saddam and seven co-accused are charged with killing 148
Shi’ite Muslims after an attempt on his life in the town of
Dujail in 1982.

He has said he was acting within the law against people who
tried to kill him.

Prosecutors hoped the Dujail case would produce a swift
sentence because the charges are less complicated than others
such as genocide. But the trial has faced many setbacks,
including the chief judge’s resignation and killing of two
defense lawyers.

The special tribunal trying Saddam said on Tuesday that he
would face charges of genocide against the Kurds, who accuse
him of killing more than 100,000 people and destroying
thousands of their villages in the late 1980s in the Anfal
campaign.

Saddam sat in the chamber in a dark suit and white shirt as
his lawyer argued his case.

He engaged in verbal sparring with the judge, whose
impartiality has been questioned because he is a Kurd from the
village of Halabja, where Saddam’s forces were accused of
killing 5,000 people in a poison gas attack in 1988.

Saddam sarcastically referred to Abdel Rahman as “Sir
Raouf.”

“I am the judge,” said Abdel Rahman. Saddam responded: “I
don’t know, I have to make sure.”

Challenging prosecutor Moussawi again, he said of the
bodies left after the Dujail crackdown: “The bodies were not
shown to me. I am not a morgue director.”