Saddam trial resumes with hidden “Witness A”

By Luke Baker

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The first woman to testify in the trial
of Saddam Hussein broke down in tears on Tuesday as, in fear of
her life, she testified behind a curtain about how she was
forced to strip by Iraqi prison guards.

With her voice distorted by computer to protect her
identity, “Witness A” spoke only briefly before technical
problems with the sound equipment prompted a short recess after
Saddam’s defense team said they could not hear the evidence.

The woman addressed the court after the former president
had entered it for the fourth day of his trial, greeting his
co- defendants with the defiant phrase: “Good morning to all
those who respect the law.”

The woman sobbed as she told the court she had been forced
to strip in custody during the Saddam era and her brother and
other family members had been seized by his forces.

It was not clear from her testimony when or where the
alleged incidents took place. The trial is centered on the
killings of over 140 men from the Shi’ite village of Dujail
after a failed assassination attempt on Saddam in 1982.

Witness A was hidden from Saddam and his seven
co-defendants behind a high curtain.

Saddam’s defense team complained her voice was so distorted
they could not understand it. The judge first cut off sound to
the public galleries then ordered a break to fix the technical
problems. The trial later resumed.

The woman had begun her testimony by reciting a Shi’ite
Muslim religious poem but the judge halted her and asked her to
keep to the facts.

Tuesday’s proceedings followed a lengthy and highly charged
hearing on Monday where two witnesses, defying a man who still
inspires fear, gave emotional testimony of torture and crimes
against humanity which Saddam and his co-accused dismissed as
lies. The proceedings are being shown live on television.

Those witnesses presented testimony of torture and summary
execution, and told of a meat grinder for human flesh and other
horrors allegedly inflicted on people from Dujail.

Saddam responded by saying he was not afraid to die.

“If you want my neck you can have it,” he told the judges.
“I am not afraid of execution.”

The trial has rekindled painful memories for many Iraqis
just a week before they vote for their first full-term
parliament since Saddam’s downfall.

For many in the Shi’ite majority and among ethnic Kurds,
oppressed by Saddam’s Sunni Arab-dominated regime, the widely
televised trial addresses a longing for vengeance not entirely
satisfied by the power U.S.-backed democracy has brought them.

But others, including minority Sunnis who feel threatened
by a Shi’ite-led government they accuse of condoning death
squads out for revenge, share Saddam’s contention that the
U.S.-funded court is staging a show trial under a law “made in
America.”

International rights groups have also criticized the court
for failing to protect the defense lawyers, two of whom have
been killed since the trial of the eight accused of crimes
against humanity began on October 19.

The U.N. human rights chief in Iraq told Reuters he saw
little prospect of the trial meeting international standards.

Early on Tuesday the judge warned defendants to be careful
about the way they talked to witnesses, and the chief
prosecutor described their behavior during Monday’s session as
“criminal.”

Saddam’s half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan
Ibrahim al-Tikriti, the most forceful of Saddam’s
co-defendants, responded by telling the prosecutor he was
talking nonsense.

“Are only we not supposed to interrupt the witnesses, or
are the witnesses also not supposed to interrupt us?” he asked.

The trial was swiftly adjourned for 40 days after it opened
to give the defense more time to prepare, and again last week
to let two of the defendants find new attorneys following the
killing of a second defense lawyer last month.