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| Saddam Trial Adjourns until Thursday |
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The trial of deposed Saddam Hussein and six of his codefendants has adjourned until Thursday, Chief Judge said on Wednesday. "The court decided to adjourn its session until Sept. 14," chief judge Abdullah al-Amiri said after hearing four witnesses. At the beginning of the sixth session, the chief prosecutor asked the chief judge Abdullah al-Amiri to resign, alleging he was biased toward the defendants. "The defendants have gone too far, using unacceptable expressions and words, they even uttered clear threats. Therefore, the prosecutors' office demanded the judge to step down from this case," leading prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon said in his opening statement. Al-Amiri dismissed the request, saying, "The judge should coordinate and make peace, so nobody takes advantage of his fairness. I have been working in the judicial system for the past 25 years." The chief judge then ordered the first witness, the 15th in Anfal case which started on Aug. 21, to take the stand to submit his complains against the defendants. "My village Skaniyan was attacked with chemical weapons by the Iraqi army in 1988," Hama Lao Ahmed, 41, told the court. He said that the Iraqi artillery pounded his village from four directions and the village was griped by the Iraqi forces before the fall of the nearby Sirkro village," Ahmed said. Saddam's former defense minister Sultan Hashim, who was the commander of then Iraqi army, argued with the witness and said that "How could you be positive that the Iraqi troops pounded your village from four directions, while the Iraqi troops were 20-30 km away?" "Majid killed a large number of our Kurdish peshmerga guerrillas, civilians and members of the opposition Dawa and communist party," Muhammed said referring to the attacks in 1988. "Iraqi warplanes flew over the region and dropped balloons, apparently full of chemical weapons, then missiles followed. Some of them fell near my place. Many were killed and parts of human bodies scattered," he said. The third witness Saadoun Khider Qader said that detainees by the Iraqi security forces were abused and that those who died were carried outside by their mates. "We saw dogs eating them (the bodies) through the windows," he said. A fourth witness, 28, said that his parents and two brothers were disappeared in the Anfal offensive in 1988 and was informed in 2004 that their bodies found in a mass grave. Saddam and his six former aides, including his cousin AliHassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali", are facing genocide and other charges for killing tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds in 1988, known as anti-Kurdish Anfal case. They may face execution by hanging if found guilty. Saddam was also awaiting a possible death sentence verdict for a separate case involving the killing of some 148 Shiite countrymen in the village of Dujail following a failed assassination attempt against Saddam near the village in 1982. (Xinhua News Agency September 14, 2006) |
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