Saddam trial hits turning point after dramatic evidence
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-03-03 08:57

On Wednesday, at the 14th court hearing, Saddam, who faces death by hanging if convicted, made a dramatic statement saying he personally ordered the trial of the 148 accused of plotting to kill him and signed an order to destroy their orchards.

"If putting a defendant on trial on charges of shooting at a head of state ... is considered a crime, then you have the head of state in your hands. Why are you trying other people? There was only one president," Saddam told the court.

A US diplomat close to the tribunal, who asked not to be named, suggested this was a "serious" admission of guilt "which could be used in evidence against him."

But Nehal Bhuta, an observer from the Human Rights' Watch International Justice programme, argued that Saddam's statement was "more an admission of fact than an admission of guilt."

"In effect, was he was saying was 'I was acting within my legal rights' as president of Iraq" when ordering that the villagers be tried, Bhuta said.

Saddam said Wednesday he barely escaped the assassination bid when a number of men fired on his mortorcade as he drove through Dujail, north of Baghdad.

Large numbers of villagers were rounded up after the attack and the relatives of those executed, among them children as young as three-months, were deported to a desert prison camp in the south of the country. Their farms were destroyed and orchards cut down.

"If I had wanted I wouldn't have referred them (the accused villagers) to the revolutionary court. I did refer them to the revolutionary court. And they were tried according to the law," Saddam added.

In such trials, as was also the case in Nuremberg after World War II, documents are all important to prove the responsibility of the leaders, said Bhuta.

But documentary proof may also be vital because of the lack of witnesses willing to testify as to the direct implication of the accused.

A number of witnesses, after submitting initial testimony, have disappeared or refused to attend the hearings, and a former interior minister, Saadun Shaker, who was expected to be a witness for the prosecution has decided to remain silent.

Some defence lawyers alleged he was pressured into making initial confessions, while others suggested he was offered immunity in exchange for his testimony. Prosecutors on Wednesday asked that he also be charged in connection with events in Dujail.

A number of Iraqis interviewed in Baghdad on Thursday said they'd grown weary of the trial and looked forward to its end.

Among them was Hassan Abed Ali, a Shiite taxi driver.

"The trial has been going on for months. It's time to end it. Saddam has admitted responsibility. The others (defendants) are just puppets," he said.