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Saddam returns to court, slams Interior Ministry

Posted on: Wednesday, 5 April 2006, 05:50 CDT

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."

Source: REUTERS

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