Saddam Hussein trial resumes on genocide charges

Source: Xinhuanet | 11-09-2006 09:12

BAGHDAD, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- The ousted leader Saddam Hussein and six of his aides appeared in a Baghdad court Wednesday on charges of genocide against Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, a series of car bombs and mortar barrages rocked the capital during the day, killing up to 21 and wounding some 77 others.

The session began with a demand submitted by a defense lawyer to the court to order investigation into the rummaging of the defense offices used to be guarded by the U.S. soldiers in the heavily fortified Green Zone last month.

"I demand to open investigation with the American authorities because the offices were guarded by U.S. soldiers," Badie Aref Izzat told the court.

Izzat also complained that the prosecutors provided new documents for the defense, but they were unreadable.

"I have received 1429 pieces of totally black papers," Izzat said.

The judge ordered the prosecutors to provide a new set of documents to the defense team.

Izzat appeared for the first time since the defense team boycotted the trial on Sep. 21, in protest to the court's rejection of their requests.

In Wednesday's trial, four witnesses took the stand to testify in the trial of operation Anfal (Spoils of War) military campaign in which prosecutors said that up to 180,000 Kurds were killed, many of them by poison gas.

The first witness Ayoub Abdellah Mohammad said that his village was bombed by chemical weapons on Aug. 24, 1988, four days after a cease-fire in the war with Iran.

"The court can now scrutinize the village to see the remains of bombing, rockets and shrapnel," he said.

Another witness, Tawfeeq Abdul-Aziz Mustafa also said that his village was bombed by chemical weapons and that he and several villagers buried some badly charred bodies before they fled to neighboring Turkey.

Mustafa said his uncle died in Turkey by the effects of the chemical attack and his vision weakened.

A third female witness said that she lost her husband and her son along with 27 others from her relatives and have not found them till now.

Meanwhile, a Saddam codefendant, Sabir al-Douri, from former military intelligence, told the court that the Kurdish guerrillas were collaborating with the Iranians who fought an eight-year war with Iraq starting from 1980.

"The Kurdish guerrilla and the Iranians were working together," he said.

Judge Ureiybi adjourned the trial till Nov. 27 to give enough time to the defense to assemble a list of witnesses.

In the political arena, the American ambassador in Iraq Zalmai Khalilzad said that U.S. President George W. Bush would continue supporting Iraqi government despite Republican's heavy loss in Tuesday's mid-term elections.

"Americans are prepared to continue to support Iraq as Iraqis take the needed steps," Khalilzad said on a videotape aired by the Iraqi state-run television.

On Wednesday, the U.S. military said a marine was killed due to enemy action while operating in the volatile Anbar province, bringing the number of U.S. soldier killed in Iraq to more than 2,820 since the U.S.-led war broke out in March 2003.

However, four car bombs went off in Baghdad and the nearby Mahmoudiyah town during the day, leaving ten people killed, including a police commando members, and 32 others wounded, including three police commando members, according to police reports.

Five more mortar attacks in different parts of Baghdad killed 11 people and wounding 45 others, they said.

Editor:Wang Ping