Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Media: AFP
Byline: Dave Clark
Date: 09 October 2006
Body:
BAGHDAD, Oct 9, 2006 (AFP) - Kurdish witnesses accused Saddam Hussein of
bulldozing their families into mass graves Monday as the ousted Iraqi
leader returned to court for the latest hearing in his genocide trial.
The case continued following a two-week adjournment, despite a boycott by
Saddam's defence lawyers, and the court heard evidence of appalling
conditions at a prison camp in northern Iraq where wild dogs feasted on
human remains.
The former strongman and six of his top officials are accused of ordering
the 1988 Anfal campaign by Iraqi forces in which, prosecutors say, 182,000
Kurds were killed in death camps, bombings and poison gas attacks.
A Kurdish woman spoke softly from behind a curtain to protect her identity
in a country still wracked by murders and political violence,
three-and-a-half years after Saddam was overthrown by a US-led invasion.
Haltingly, she told of how Iraqi forces attacked her village in northern
Iraq's Kurdish region in April 1988 when she was 13 years old and rounded
up members of her family, including her brother and his wife and children.
"I know what happened to my family. They were buried alive," she told the
court. The prosecutor said that her relatives' identity cards had been
found at a mass grave near Hadhar, in northern Iraq.
She told of how her community hid on Gor mountain after the arrests and her
village came under attack from Iraqi forces, who looted homes and
demolished them with artillery and bulldozers.
When the survivors came down from the hills, they were rounded up and she,
her mother and their neighbours were taken to Saddam's hometown of Tikrit,
where the men were separated from the women, she said.
Once at Nigrat Salman prison, the women were held in humiliating
conditions, and many of them died of disease and starvation.
"When we were allowed to go to the bath, we used to do it in front of the
soldiers because the place was surrounded by razor-wire," she said.
"I would like to ask Saddam a question. What was the guilt of women and
children?" she demanded, her voice sometimes cracking but growing in
confidence as her testimony continued.
Saddam sat in the dock in his trademark dark double-breasted suit,
sometimes looking uninterested, ignoring proceedings and reading the Koran.
A second witness, 42-year-old farmer Abdul-Hadi Mohammed, said his village
had also been destroyed and many of his relatives dragged off to Nigrat
Salman.
His pregnant wife, his mother, two brothers, two sisters and four nieces
and nephews are still missing, he said, while his mother-in-law had
returned.
"She told me of a black dog that had dug up the body of my mother and eaten
her," he said.
Judge Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah halted hearings two weeks ago in order
to give defendants time to arrange for lawyers, after a series of rowdy
court sessions was marred by a boycott by the entire defence team.
But Saddam's lawyers said at the weekend that they will maintain their
boycott, in protest at what they said was Iraqi government interference in
the case, particularly the sacking of a former chief judge.
Seven lawyers appointed by the Iraqi High Tribunal attended Monday's
session to act for the defence. Saddam has in the past refused to recognise
court appointed counsel and has often been thrown out of court for being
disruptive.
Saddam and one other defendant, his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, a former
military commander who became notorious as "Chemical Ali", are accused of
genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The remaining defendants are charged with war crimes and crimes against
humanity and all seven men in the dock face the death penalty if convicted.
While the Anfal case continues, another panel of judges are preparing to
give their verdict in a previous trial against Saddam and another group of
former aides alleged to have ordered the killing of 148 Shiite civilians.
The court is due to convene on October 16 to set a date for the verdict in
the case -- dubbed the Dujail trial after the small town north of Baghdad
where the victims were seized -- and Saddam could be sentenced to death.
If he is and loses an automatic appeal, judges will have to decide whether
to press ahead with the Anfal trial and several other cases relating to
alleged crimes during his 24 years in office, or whether to execute him
right away.
Byline: Dave Clark
Date: 09 October 2006
Body:
BAGHDAD, Oct 9, 2006 (AFP) - Kurdish witnesses accused Saddam Hussein of
bulldozing their families into mass graves Monday as the ousted Iraqi
leader returned to court for the latest hearing in his genocide trial.
The case continued following a two-week adjournment, despite a boycott by
Saddam's defence lawyers, and the court heard evidence of appalling
conditions at a prison camp in northern Iraq where wild dogs feasted on
human remains.
The former strongman and six of his top officials are accused of ordering
the 1988 Anfal campaign by Iraqi forces in which, prosecutors say, 182,000
Kurds were killed in death camps, bombings and poison gas attacks.
A Kurdish woman spoke softly from behind a curtain to protect her identity
in a country still wracked by murders and political violence,
three-and-a-half years after Saddam was overthrown by a US-led invasion.
Haltingly, she told of how Iraqi forces attacked her village in northern
Iraq's Kurdish region in April 1988 when she was 13 years old and rounded
up members of her family, including her brother and his wife and children.
"I know what happened to my family. They were buried alive," she told the
court. The prosecutor said that her relatives' identity cards had been
found at a mass grave near Hadhar, in northern Iraq.
She told of how her community hid on Gor mountain after the arrests and her
village came under attack from Iraqi forces, who looted homes and
demolished them with artillery and bulldozers.
When the survivors came down from the hills, they were rounded up and she,
her mother and their neighbours were taken to Saddam's hometown of Tikrit,
where the men were separated from the women, she said.
Once at Nigrat Salman prison, the women were held in humiliating
conditions, and many of them died of disease and starvation.
"When we were allowed to go to the bath, we used to do it in front of the
soldiers because the place was surrounded by razor-wire," she said.
"I would like to ask Saddam a question. What was the guilt of women and
children?" she demanded, her voice sometimes cracking but growing in
confidence as her testimony continued.
Saddam sat in the dock in his trademark dark double-breasted suit,
sometimes looking uninterested, ignoring proceedings and reading the Koran.
A second witness, 42-year-old farmer Abdul-Hadi Mohammed, said his village
had also been destroyed and many of his relatives dragged off to Nigrat
Salman.
His pregnant wife, his mother, two brothers, two sisters and four nieces
and nephews are still missing, he said, while his mother-in-law had
returned.
"She told me of a black dog that had dug up the body of my mother and eaten
her," he said.
Judge Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah halted hearings two weeks ago in order
to give defendants time to arrange for lawyers, after a series of rowdy
court sessions was marred by a boycott by the entire defence team.
But Saddam's lawyers said at the weekend that they will maintain their
boycott, in protest at what they said was Iraqi government interference in
the case, particularly the sacking of a former chief judge.
Seven lawyers appointed by the Iraqi High Tribunal attended Monday's
session to act for the defence. Saddam has in the past refused to recognise
court appointed counsel and has often been thrown out of court for being
disruptive.
Saddam and one other defendant, his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, a former
military commander who became notorious as "Chemical Ali", are accused of
genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The remaining defendants are charged with war crimes and crimes against
humanity and all seven men in the dock face the death penalty if convicted.
While the Anfal case continues, another panel of judges are preparing to
give their verdict in a previous trial against Saddam and another group of
former aides alleged to have ordered the killing of 148 Shiite civilians.
The court is due to convene on October 16 to set a date for the verdict in
the case -- dubbed the Dujail trial after the small town north of Baghdad
where the victims were seized -- and Saddam could be sentenced to death.
If he is and loses an automatic appeal, judges will have to decide whether
to press ahead with the Anfal trial and several other cases relating to
alleged crimes during his 24 years in office, or whether to execute him
right away.