Saddam stands defiant before Iraqi court

Court hearings ended Thursday, July 1, for Saddam Hussein and 11 of his top lieutenants, reporters at the court said.

Among those in court besides Saddam to hear charges against them were former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and Hassan Ali al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for his alleged role in using poison gas against Kurds and Iranians.

Saddam arrived with his hands cuffed and in chains at a courtroom in a complex that was once one of his palaces.

But although Saddam Hussein has been overthrown and captured, he had not lost his defiance.

"I am Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq," he told a hearing where he was read seven charges, according to pool reporters in the courtroom at Camp Victory, a sprawling US base that was previously a lavish hunting estate with a manufatured lake.

"This is all theatre," Saddam said. "The real criminal is (US President George W.) Bush."

CNN's Christiane Amanpour, one of a handful of pool journalists allowed into the courtroom, said Saddam looked "alternately downcast and combative."

Pictures of Saddam Hussein at his court hearing, looking haggard and with a neatly trimmed beard that had mostly turned grey, were broadcast around the world yesterday shortly after the proceedings.

Saddam was wearing a dark grey jacket over a white shirt, with no tie. It was the first footage shown of the ousted Iraqi leader since photographs and videotape taken after his capture in December.

Saddam was shown gesticulating towards the judge, and at times wagging his finger angrily. He was thinner than he had appeared in US footage taken just after he was captured hiding in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit in December, and the wild beard he sported when he was captured was now neatly trimmed. He had bags under his eyes.

He declared he was president of Iraq and that the country's occupiers could not strip him of that title. The judge told him that, under the Geneva Conventions, they could.

Saddam refused to concede that the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was a crime, denouncing the Kuwaitis.

"They were trying to turn Iraqi women into prostitutes for just US$10," he said. "How could you defend those dogs?" The judge warned him not to use such language.

Saddam also refused to sign a statement acknowledging that he had been charged and read his rights. The hearing followed the end of his prisoner of war status and his transfer from US to Iraqi legal custody on Wednesday.

Hearing the charge that he ordered the killing of thousands of Kurds in a poison gas attack at Halabja in 1988, Saddam seemed to imply he had nothing to do with it. "Yes, I heard about that," he said.

Told by the judge at the hearing that legal counsel would be provided for him if he needed it, Saddam said: "But everyone says, the Americans say, I have millions of dollars stashed away in Geneva. Why shouldn't I afford a lawyer?"

Courtroom once his palace

The courtroom is close to the palace in the middle of an artificial lake stocked with fish on the southwest fringe of Baghdad. Members of Saddam's inner circle used to go hunting in the grounds, and soldiers say Saddam's playboy son Uday used one of the palace buildings for his assignations.

The complex is now Camp Victory, a sprawling US military base where top US generals in Iraq have their headquarters. Nearby is Camp Cropper, a high-security detention facility where Saddam and his lieutenants are believed to be held.

The small sandstone-coloured court building is next to a blue-domed mosque, and was formerly the imam's residence.

It has been used for several courts martial, and for last week's hearing for Specialist Sabrina Harman, one of the seven American soldiers charged with abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib jail where thousands of Iraqis were imprisoned and tortured under Saddam.

Soldiers have tinted the windows of the octagonal building and reinforced them with sandbags. Around it, several Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles were deployed.

Reporters at the courtroom said Saddam arrived in an armoured bus, escorted by four US Humvee military vehicles and a military ambulance. Handcuffed and chained, he was taken into the building by two Iraqi prison guards, while six others waited outside.

Legal custody of Saddam was given to Iraq on Wednesday but US forces will continue to guard him.

Saddam built palaces all over Iraq, for the use of his family and top officials. According to Iraqi folklore he slept in a different place every night and cooks in every palace were ordered to prepare dinner every night just in case he arrived.

When US soldiers swept through Iraq in March and April last year they found that many of the palaces appeared unused for months or years, with furniture filmed with dust and grime.

Inside the palace where the hearing took place, the floor is made of marble and the doors are engraved wood. Antique Iraqi art hangs on the walls and on the floor of the courtroom is a silk rug officials say is worth US$40,000, a leftover from the days when Saddam was in power.

The palace was officially built in honour of troops who recaptured the Faw Peninsula in southeast Baghdad during the long Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, when Saddam was at the height of his power and regarded as an ally by the United States.

Trial months away

Saddam had no lawyers to represent him at the initial arraignment. Formal indictment may not be ready for months.

Charges against Saddam and 11 of his top lieutenants include war crimes and genocide, as well as crimes against humanity.

"The judge has prepared a separate charge sheet for each one of them," said Salem Chalabi, a US-trained lawyer who has led the work of the special tribunal.

The US military handed the 12 men over to Iraqi legal custody on Wednesday, but will continue to guard them following the return of sovereignty to Iraqis yesterday.

'Make him suffer'

Many Iraqis want Saddam to be executed, though some say they would prefer him to suffer a more protracted punishment.

"There must be a way to really make him suffer," said Kati Hamadi, a mother of three who lost her husband and brother under Saddam's rule in the 1980s and 1990s.

"Having an Iraqi trial is an excellent idea. It will expose his murderous past and let Iraqis know all the things he has to answer for Iraqis need to hear that," she said.

Iraq's interim government is considering restoring the death penalty, suspended during the US-British occupation.

The government, led by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, wants to show Iraqis the occupation is really over, despite the presence of US-led foreign troops, and to prove it can curb violence.

US launches another strike

The missile strike, which a doctor in the insurgent-controlled city said killed four people, came shortly before former president Saddam Hussein appeared in an Iraqi court.

As the morning wore yesterday, a roadside bomb detonated near a central Baghdad hospital, injuring a senior Iraqi Finance Ministry official and killing two of his guards, police and hospital officials said.

Ehsan Karim, the head of the ministry's audit board, suffered slight injuries in the bombing, said Colonel Adnan Hussein, head of the Interior Ministry's information office.

Karim's guard and driver were killed in the explosion that occurred near Yarmouk Hospital, said Karima Ali Salam, a nurse at the hospital. Four bystanders were also injured.

The US attack on the safe house was launched after "multiple confirmations of Iraqi and multinational intelligence," said Brigade General Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations director for the multinational force.

"This operation employed precision weapons to attack the safe house and underscores the resolve of multinational and Iraqi security forces to jointly destroy terrorist networks within Iraq," Kimmitt said.

Kimmitt did not mention casualties in his statement, but Loai Ali of the Fallujah General Hospital said four people were killed and 10 injured. There was no word on whether al-Zarqawi was in the house.

Falluja residents contacted by telephone said US jets fired missiles at a house on the eastern side of the city. The raid came hours after rebels fired mortar rounds at a US base on the outskirts of Baghdad's airport, wounding 11 soldiers and starting a fire that burned for more than an hour.

US forces have mounted three previous airstrikes against suspected terrorist hideouts in recent days.

Source: agencies