Little testimony ties Saddam to crackdown
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-05 09:33

Both she and Bhuta from Human Rights Watch believe the best case scenario for the prosecution would be to produce a senior member of Saddam's regime to testify against the former ruler and others in exchange for immunity.

Saadoun Shaker, who was interior minister at the time, may be one possibility. His name was mentioned by a Saddam defense lawyer as a prosecution witness. Al-Mousawi, the prosecutor, was believed to have been referring to Shaker when he told the AP last week that a senior official of the former regime would be among the witnesses.

Al-Mousawi refused to identify the witness and played down his significance.

In theory, Shaker's job should have given him an insight into internal security matters and authority over the police force. However, testimony given in court suggested that police were not involved in the Dujail crackdown, with only Mukhabarat — intelligence — agents, Baath militiamen and elite army units loyal to the regime.

The absence so far of a "smoking gun" incriminating Saddam has not escaped his defense lawyers.

"It's all hearsay," said attorney Khamis al-Obeidi. "All witnesses were children in 1982, some as young as 6. Their testimonies are clearly rehearsed and don't incriminate President Saddam," he told the AP.

For example, a video filmed the day of the assassination attempt and played during the trial's first session Oct. 19 only showed the former president addressing a cheering crowd at Dujail and ordering aides to detain and interrogate four suspects.

In a disposition videotaped Oct. 23, Wadah Ismael al-Sheik, who led the interrogations department of the Mukhabarat at the time, said he had not heard anything directly from Saddam about the Dujail incident.

However, he also said that Saddam decorated Mukhabarat officers, including himself, who worked on the case. The witness died of cancer shortly after the recording.

But witnesses maintained that Saddam, as head of state, bore the ultimate responsibility.

"When a lot of people are jailed and tortured, who takes that decision?" a witness told the court Dec. 6 after recounting her own torture and imprisonment. "Was he (Saddam) not the ruler while thousands were jailed and tortured?" asked another witness the following day.

Saddam, who has often launched into his own defense, varied his tactics in response to allegations by the witnesses that he was ultimately responsible for what happened.

"If Saddam was found out to have laid a hand on a single Iraqi, then everything he (a witness) says is correct," Saddam told the court Dec. 5. "Was it not the right of Saddam Hussein to have his agencies pursue those who fired at him?"