Ex-Saddam Judge Admits Sentencing Shiites

Ex-Saddam Judge Admits Sentencing Shiites
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A former judge from Saddam Hussein's regime acknowledged sentencing 148 Shiites to death in the 1980s, but insisted they were given a proper trial and had confessed to trying to assassinate the former Iraqi leader.

The question of the Shiites' prosecution is a key point in the trial of Saddam and seven former members of his regime.

The eight are charged with killing the Shiites, as well as illegal imprisonment and torture of hundreds of others - including women and children - in a crackdown launched against the town of Dujail following a 1982 assassination attempt against Saddam. They face possible execution by hanging if convicted.

After about five hours of questioning the defendants, chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman adjourned the trial until Wednesday, when presumably Saddam and his half brother, former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim, will testify.

Saddam has admitted that he ordered the trial of the 148 before his Revolutionary Court. But he said he had the right to do so because they were accused in the attempt to kill him.

Prosecutors have said the trial was "imaginary," and that the 148 did not even appear before the Revolutionary Court that sentenced them to death.

For the first time, the court heard testimony from two of the top defendants in the trial: Awad al-Bandar, the chief judge of the Revolutionary Court, and Taha Yassin Ramadan, a member of Saddam's Baath Party Command and the Revolutionary Command Council at the time and later a vice president.

Ramadan read a statement in which he rejected the trial's legitimacy and claimed he had been tortured by U.S. troops since his arrest in 2003. He insisted that the actions in Dujail by Saddam's regime were legal, because the former leader had been attacked.

"This trial is the oddity of our era. ... A legitimate president is being tried because his motorcade came under fire," he said.

Al-Bandar said he sentenced the 148 to death but insisted their trial was conducted "in accordance with the law."

"The court had no choice but to implement the law," he said.

The chief judge in the Saddam trial, Raouf Abdel-Rahman, questioned al-Bandar over the 1984 trial, asking how all 148 defendants could have fit in the court. "Those who did not fit in the cage used to be allowed to stand outside the cage," al-Bandar replied.

Al-Bandar said the Shiites' trial lasted two weeks - from May 27 to June 14, 1984 - and that all the defendants had lawyers.

"How did you take the testimonies of 148 persons that quickly?" the judge asked him. Al-Bandar said the 148 had confessed. "We were at war with Iran, and they confessed that they did their act at orders coming from Iran," he said.

Saddam and his co-defendants have depicted the crackdown as a legal response to the assassination attempt on July 8, 1982, when gunmen opened fire on the leader's motorcade as he drove through Dujail, north of Baghdad.

But prosecutors have sought to show Saddam's regime attempts to punish the town's civilian population. Hundreds of people were arrested - including entire families, with women and young children - and detained for years. They have produced documents showing 10 juveniles - including ones as young as 11 and 13 years old - were among those sentenced to death.

Dujail residents have testified that they were tortured in prison, including women who said they were stripped naked and given electrical shocks.

Al-Bandar argued frequently with the judge and chief prosecutors, waving his hands as they questioned him about the 1984 trial.

"Are you saying all 148 participated in the shooting?" Abdel-Rahman asked al-Bandar.

"The confessions were confirmed," al-Bandar insisted.

He said all those who were tried were over 18. Pressed by the chief prosecutor about the ages, al-Bandar said, "This was quarter of a century ago. Do you expect me to remember? There were the old and there were the young, but all of them were adults."

Prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi also presented documents shown previously to the court from the Mukhabarat intelligence agency at the time, stating that some of the 148 sentenced to death had actually died during interrogation before they could be executed.

Al-Moussawi repeatedly asked al-Bandar how all the defendants could have appeared before the Revolutionary Court if some had already died. Al-Bandar insisted all 148 were there, but finally threw up his hands, saying, "It is so strange and surprising that someone might die in interrogation?"

"Is it strange and surprising? Is that what you're saying?" Abdel-Rahman said in disbelief.

"This shows that the defendants themselves were not referred before the court, only their papers. And the death sentences were based solely on those papers," al-Moussawi argued.

For the past two days, the court has heard direct testimony from the defendants for the first time. Each of the eight defendants is to appear, one by one, to be questioned by Abdel-Rahman and the chief prosecutor.

On Sunday, the court heard testimony from three defendants - local members of Saddam's former ruling Baath Party. They denied accusations they informed the security forces and the Mukhabarat about Dujail families who were subsequently arrested.

Before al-Bandar, another of the lower-level defendants, Mohammed Azawi Ali, testified Monday, denying the same charges.

"I didn't detain anyone, not even a bug. I didn't write any reports about people, and if there is someone in Dujail who says this, bring him here and let him face me," Ali told the court. "I don't know why they brought me here."
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