Saddam Hussein quiet as trial resumes
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-01 18:22

Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants calmly entered the courtroom Wednesday for the latest session of their trial, a day after prosecutors presented their most direct evidence yet pinning the former Iraqi leader to executions of Shiites in the 1980s.

For the second straight day, the session had a quiet start, a sharp contrast to the outbursts, insults and arguments that characterized past proceedings.

The trial, which began Oct. 19, appears to have entered a new phase, after chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman imposed control on the stormy tribunal and prosecutors began presenting the core of their case: documents they say prove Saddam and his co-defendants led a campaign of arrests, torture and executions in which 148 Shiites died following a 1982 attempt to assassinate Saddam in the town of Dujail.

Prosecutors on Wednesday planned to bring several former regime officials to the witness stand.

Saddam's defense team on Tuesday ended a boycott of the proceedings that had aimed to remove Abdel-Rahman, who they claimed was biased against the former Iraqi leader. Abdel-Rahman rejected the demand to step down Tuesday, though the defense said it would appeal.

The turn in the case — including the defense team's participation and the order in the room — boosted hopes the controversial trial will be seen as credible in a country still sharply divided by Saddam's legacy.

But those splits have only gotten wider amid a surge of bloody sectarian violence between Iraq's Sunnis and Shiites. At least 68 people were killed Tuesday in bombings and mortar barrages, mainly against religious targets, in continued violence sparked by an attack last week on a major Shiite shrine.

In court on Tuesday, chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi presented on an overhead screen a series of documents — presidential orders, court rulings and internal memos of the Mukhabarat intelligence agency, some handwritten, some with the letterhead of the agency — detailing executions following the Dujail crackdown.

Chief among them was a June 16, 1984, presidential decree approving death sentences against 148 Shiites from Dujail. The document had a signature that al-Moussawi said was Saddam's.

A document issued two days earlier by the Revolutionary Court announced the death sentences and listed the 148. Among those sentenced to hang was an 11-year-old boy and nine other juveniles 17 years old or younger, though it was not clear Saddam was aware of their ages since the court document had only their names.

The sentences were passed after an "imaginary trial," al-Moussawi told the court.

"None of the defendants were brought to court. Their statements were never recorded," he said.

Other documents showed that about 50 of those sentenced died during interrogation before they could go to the gallows. One man, his brother and two sons were executed by mistake, and Saddam allegedly ordered them declared "martyrs" to cover up the error.

When it was discovered that the 11-year-old and nine other juveniles were not executed but were still in prison years later, they were ordered killed and their bodies buried in secret — an order approved with a signature the prosecution said was that of the intelligence agency chief at the time, Barzan Ibrahim, who is Saddam's half brother and a co-defendant in the trial.

Saddam, Ibrahim and six other members of the former regime are on trial for torture, imprisonment and the killings in the crackdown. They face death by hanging if convicted.