Kurds accuse Saddam of poison gas attacks

By Michael Georgy

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi Kurds told Saddam Hussein’s
genocide trial on Tuesday how jets dropped poison gas smelling
of rotten apples on mountain villages, but former aides
insisted they had targeted only Iranian-backed Kurdish rebels.

Taking the stand in Baghdad on the second day of the former
president’s second capital trial, first witness Ali Mustafa
Hama said: “Birds were returning to their nests. I saw eight to
12 jets patrolling the sky. There was greenish smoke from the
bombs. There was a smell of rotten apple or garlic.

“People were vomiting,” he said. “We were blinded. We were
screaming. There was no one to save us, only God.”

One woman gave birth in the raid and her baby died at once.

During cross-examination, defense counsel asked Hama how he
could tell the aircraft were Iraqi. He said his village had no
problems with Iranian forces, so he doubted they would have
dropped poison gas. Hama also admitted that he had helped
shelter Kurdish guerrillas.

Saddam himself challenged the witness, asking: “Who told
you to say this?”

Two of Saddam’s former military commanders, among six
fellow defendants charged with war crimes, had earlier been
allowed to make brief statements in their defense, in which
they portrayed the 1988 Anfal — Spoils of War — campaign as a
legitimate response to Iraqi Kurds fighting alongside Iran
against Baghdad.

“We were fighting an organized army,” said Sultan Hashim,
commander of Task Force Anfal and later defense minister.

IRAN THE ENEMY

“The Iranians and Kurds were fighting hand-in-hand,” former
military intelligence chief Sabir al-Douri said, arguing
Kurdish peshmerga guerrillas were allied with Saddam’s Iranian
enemies in the 1980-88 war in which Baghdad had tacit U.S.
support.

Former Kurdish rebel leader, now President Jalal Talabani
spent much of the war years in exile in Tehran, as did the head
of the other main Kurdish guerrilla group Masoud Barzani.

In a pointed remark going to the heart of sectarian tension
around the trial of Saddam’s Sunni-dominated secular regime,
Douri recalled telling a friend he would never be prosecuted
for his actions at that time “unless Iran occupies Iraq.”

Many minority Sunni Arabs portray the rise to power of the
Shi’ite Muslim majority following the U.S. overthrow of Saddam
as an occupation by Shi’ite Islamist Iran, prompting critics to
question whether Saddam and his aides can have a fair trial.

Saddam and his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, are charged
with genocide over the seven-month campaign. Majid earned his
nickname “Chemical Ali” after poison gas attacks in the north.

Hama spoke of events a year before the formal launch of the
Anfal campaign, in the Balisan valley north of Sulaimaniya.

Speaking in Kurdish and wearing a headdress, Hama, in his
early 50s, recalled April 16, 1987: “There were two women. One
of them was pregnant. When she gave birth, the little infant
was trying to see the world. He breathed in the chemicals and
died.”

A second witness from the area, Najiba Khudair Ahmad,
likened Saddam to Hitler but said she was not out for his
blood:

“We do not want revenge on Saddam or Ali Majid. We want
them to be dealt with according to the law. We are not like
Saddam, who killed children and broke my back.”

As Ahmad spoke in Kurdish of her suffering, Saddam accused
the Arabic translator of coaching her on what to say, prompting
the judge to ask the translator to sit out in open court.

The trial continues on Wednesday.

A verdict in Saddam’s first trial, for crimes against
humanity over the killing of Shi’ite men from Dujail, is
expected in October. The 69-year-old former leader faces the
death penalty in both cases, but a dozen other trials could
delay any execution for years, raising the possibility that
like former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, he may die in
jail.