Saddam co-defendant takes stand

By Mussab al-Khairalla and Michael Georgy

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The former chief of Saddam Hussein’s
Revolutionary Court told a judge on Thursday that it took him
16 days to condemn 148 Shi’ite Muslims to death two decades
ago.

“The trial lasted 16 days beginning from the day it started
to the day the verdicts were issued,” said Awad al-Bandar, one
of Saddam’s seven co-accused in a trial on charges of crimes
against humanity.

Saddam and his co-defendants are charged with the killings
of 148 Shi’ite men and teenagers after an attempt on the former
president’s life in the town of Dujail in 1982.

The special tribunal heard prosecution assertions on
Wednesday that Bandar’s court sent young men below the legal
execution age of 18 to their deaths. Identification cards of
teenagers as young as 14 were exhibited.

When an argument erupted on Thursday between Bandar and
chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi over the identification
card of a 15-year-old boy who was executed, the chief judge
took the liberty of briefly cutting off the sound system.

Saddam Hussein, who could face a new trial for genocide
against the Kurds as early as next month, was not in court on
Thursday.

The only defendant was Bandar, a quiet but fierce looking
man who wears a traditional long flowing robe and checkered
headdress.

Bandar has consistently argued that the death sentences
were justified because those who were executed had connections
to Iraq’s then war foe Iran and threatened the security of the
country.

The 148 Shiites were accused of belonging to the outlawed
Dawa party, the same organization now headed by current Iraqi
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

Bandar said his court carefully examined evidence and
always sought to spare the innocent.

“God as my witness, we were happy if someone was innocent
and the Iraqi can go back to his family.”

Another prosecutor stood up and showed a document he said
showed that 46 people died under interrogation before reaching
Bandar’s chamber.

“The court was legal and I practiced my role. The
defendants confessed and I set a sentence that pleases God,”
said Bandar.

Asked whether he thought the process of sentencing the 148
people to death was hasty, Bandar replied:

“Would you sentence them one by one? That’s why we read out
the sentence for all of them in one go.”

The court has adjourned until Wednesday April 12.