Saddam shows up for resumption of trial
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-21 22:04

Muslims are required to pray five days a day at specific times.

The trial was marked by one unruly outburst — from Saddam's half-brother and co-defendant Barazan Ibrahim. In an exchange that was edited out of the televised feed, Ibrahim called the witness "a dog," guards entered the court and threatened to take him out. Ibrahim wagged his finger at the guards, telling them only the judge could tell him to leave the court.

The prosecution's first witness on Wednesday was a man who testified about killings and torture in Dujail after the attempt to assassinate Saddam. Ali Hassan Mohammed al-Haidari, who was 14 years old in 1982, started off by quoting from the Quran, the Islamic holy book, about how evil was coming and would be defeated.

As al-Haidari turned to Saddam, who finished the phrase with him, the judge, in an apparent early bid to take control of a courtroom that has often been unruly, told the witness to address the court and not Saddam directly.

It was Saddam's first court appearance following last week's election, when Iraqis swarmed to the polls to vote for the country's first full-term parliament since his downfall.

During previous sessions, Saddam has been defiant and combative at times, often trying to dominate the courtroom. He and his half brother_ Barazan Ibrahim, who was head of the Iraqi intelligence during the Dujail incident_ have used the procedures to protest their own conditions in detention.

At another point when the witness referred to Saddam by name, the former leader interrupted, saying "Saddam who?" implying the proper respect hadn't been shown. The judge asked the witness whom he meant, and the witness restated: "I mean the former Iraqi president."

Al-Haidari, whose brother was the first witness at Saddam's trial, testified that seven of his brothers were executed by Saddam's regime and so far their bodies have not been found.

"During the period of Saddam's rule we were waiting for their release. Until this day we have not received their bodies and we don't know where they were buried," he said.

The court — which held its first session Oct. 19 — has now heard from 10 witnesses, who often gave emotional testimonies of random arrests, hunger and beatings while in custody and torture in detention.

Khamis al-Ubeidi, a lawyer on Saddam's defense team, argued that the "witnesses have no legal value. Their testimonies are based on coaching and unjustified narrative."

He said the defense team had security concerns that it wanted to tell the court about.

"The court has to provide the lawyers and the defense witnesses with security," he told the AP on Tuesday. "How can a lawyer work if he cannot move freely because of the security situation?"

Some Iraqi government officials have said they hope the trial of Saddam will help heal the wounds of his regime's victims and bring Iraqis closer together.

But the trial has also highlighted divisions between Iraq's various ethnic and sectarian groups, with many Sunni Arabs expressing sympathy with the former president and even nostalgia for his era.

By contrast, many Shiites and Kurds gloated over seeing the once powerful Saddam reduced to a defendant.

The prosecution of Saddam could be a lengthy process.

The Dujail case is the first of up to a dozen that prosecutors plan to bring to trial against Saddam and his Baath Party inner circle for atrocities during their 23-year rule.

The trial is taking place in the five-story marble building that once served as the National Command Headquarters of Saddam's feared Baath Party. The building in Baghdad's Green Zone — the heavily fortified district where Iraq's government, parliament and the U.S. Embassy are located — was heavily guarded.