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Saddam trial resumes with hidden "Witness A"

Posted on: Tuesday, 6 December 2005, 04:58 CST

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.

Source: REUTERS

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