Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Media: AFP
Byline: Paul Schemm
Date: 17 October 2006
Body:
BAGHDAD, Oct 17, 2006 (AFP) - The stormy genocide trial of Saddam Hussein
and six others resumed Tuesday with the judge agreeing to a request by the
defendants for their own lawyers to return to the courtroom after a
month-long boycott.
The defense team walked out of the trial mid-September in protest at the
removal of the trial's previous chief judge, and court-appointed lawyers
have been representing the defendants ever since.
"Your honor we talked to our lawyers and they want to attend," said former
defense minister Sultan Hashim al-Tai, who sits next to Saddam in the dock.
"It is in our benefit for them to attend," he said.
Defendants have vigorously protested the absence of their lawyers and in
nearly every session Saddam has been ejected by the judge for disruptive
behavior, while in one session last week Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti, the
onetime deputy chief of operations to the Iraqi armed forces, punched a
court bailiff.
The lawyers boycotted the trial in protest at alleged interference by the
Iraqi government, and Judge Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah has assigned
seven court-appointed lawyers to conduct the defence.
After the judge agreed to the defendants' request -- which is likely to
take effect later in the week -- testimony resumed on the atrocities
allegedly committed by Saddam's forces in the 1988 Anfal campaign which
prosecutors say killed 182,000 Kurds in death camps, bombings and gas
attacks.
The former Iraqi president and his co-defendants insist the operation was a
legitimate military campaign against separatist guerrillas.
Events outside the courtroom in recent days, meanwhile, have rivalled the
unfolding drama within its walls.
On Monday, the brother of chief prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon was murdered
in front of his wife while returning home to pick up some possessions from
the west Baghdad home they'd abandoned amid the sectarian strife rocking
the capital.
Saddam himself, who claimed vociferously in the last session about the
judge's tendency to cut off his microphone when he would start discussing
political matters, made himself heard in a letter transmitted by his lawyer
Monday.
Saddam weighed in on the brutal sectarian struggle convulsing much of the
nation and called on Iraqis to focus on the true enemy.
"Do not forget that your goal is to liberate your country from the invaders
and their followers and is not a settling of accounts outside this goal,"
he said.
Saddam and his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, a former military commander who
became notorious for gas attacks as "Chemical Ali," are accused of
genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The five others are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity,
and all seven accused face the death penalty if convicted.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi High Tribunal has set a date of November 5 for the
verdict in Saddam's earlier trial for crimes against humanity in the
devastation of the village of Dujail in the 1980s.
Byline: Paul Schemm
Date: 17 October 2006
Body:
BAGHDAD, Oct 17, 2006 (AFP) - The stormy genocide trial of Saddam Hussein
and six others resumed Tuesday with the judge agreeing to a request by the
defendants for their own lawyers to return to the courtroom after a
month-long boycott.
The defense team walked out of the trial mid-September in protest at the
removal of the trial's previous chief judge, and court-appointed lawyers
have been representing the defendants ever since.
"Your honor we talked to our lawyers and they want to attend," said former
defense minister Sultan Hashim al-Tai, who sits next to Saddam in the dock.
"It is in our benefit for them to attend," he said.
Defendants have vigorously protested the absence of their lawyers and in
nearly every session Saddam has been ejected by the judge for disruptive
behavior, while in one session last week Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti, the
onetime deputy chief of operations to the Iraqi armed forces, punched a
court bailiff.
The lawyers boycotted the trial in protest at alleged interference by the
Iraqi government, and Judge Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah has assigned
seven court-appointed lawyers to conduct the defence.
After the judge agreed to the defendants' request -- which is likely to
take effect later in the week -- testimony resumed on the atrocities
allegedly committed by Saddam's forces in the 1988 Anfal campaign which
prosecutors say killed 182,000 Kurds in death camps, bombings and gas
attacks.
The former Iraqi president and his co-defendants insist the operation was a
legitimate military campaign against separatist guerrillas.
Events outside the courtroom in recent days, meanwhile, have rivalled the
unfolding drama within its walls.
On Monday, the brother of chief prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon was murdered
in front of his wife while returning home to pick up some possessions from
the west Baghdad home they'd abandoned amid the sectarian strife rocking
the capital.
Saddam himself, who claimed vociferously in the last session about the
judge's tendency to cut off his microphone when he would start discussing
political matters, made himself heard in a letter transmitted by his lawyer
Monday.
Saddam weighed in on the brutal sectarian struggle convulsing much of the
nation and called on Iraqis to focus on the true enemy.
"Do not forget that your goal is to liberate your country from the invaders
and their followers and is not a settling of accounts outside this goal,"
he said.
Saddam and his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, a former military commander who
became notorious for gas attacks as "Chemical Ali," are accused of
genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The five others are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity,
and all seven accused face the death penalty if convicted.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi High Tribunal has set a date of November 5 for the
verdict in Saddam's earlier trial for crimes against humanity in the
devastation of the village of Dujail in the 1980s.