Defiant Saddam Denies Charges, Slams "Theatre" Trial
"I am Saddam Hussein , president of Iraq," a defiant Saddam told a hearing in a courtroom at a US military base, that was once a lavish palace with a man-made lake, where he was read seven charges, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Insisting he was still president of the country during the 30-minute hearing, Saddam said "the real criminal is Bush."
The 67-year-old former strongman made hand gestures at the judge as charges, including the invasion of Kuwait, were read out.
"Kuwait is an Iraqi territory. It was not an invasion," Saddam declared according to a tribunal official who attended the hearing.
In television pictures broadcast around the world shortly after the proceedings, a visibly tired Saddam defended his August 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
"How could you defend those dogs?" he asked, only to be rebuked by the judge that "such language is not permitted" in a court of law.
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.
Illegal
The ousted president slammed the "theater" trial and question the jurisdiction of the tribunal.
Before the hearing ended, he was presented with a document to sign to acknowledge that he understood what was going on, understood the charges and that his rights had been read, but he refused to sign.
Saddam’s defense team, which has not yet been allowed to enter Iraq, on Thursday again slammed as "illegal" the Iraqi Special Tribunal.
"This court is illegal since it was designated by an illegal authority, created by the occupation," one of the lawyers, Jordanian Ziad Khassawneh, said in Amman.
Iraqi interim Justice Minister Malek Dohan Al-Hassan said Saddam would be condemned to death if found guilty.
The death sentence – suspended by the US-led occupation authority – was restored after Monday’s, June 28, sovereignty handover to an interim government.
Saddam was transported to the courtroom in an armored bus flanked by four US Humvees and an ambulance after flown there in a helicopter.
Upon arrival, he was led handcuffed and with a chain around his waist into the building by two Iraqi prison guards, while six more guards stood at the door.
The handcuffs and chains were taken off before he stepped into the courtroom.
Officials said videotape of the ex-president in court was carefully checked before they are released to the public.
The footage is the public’s first glimpse of Saddam since footage was released of a bearded and disheveled former strongman after his arrest by American troops.
US occupation troops captured the former strongman of Iraq in December as he was discovered hiding in a small hole at a farm near his hometown of Tikrit.
Law experts had said that Saddam should stand an Iraqi trial under Arab- International supervision to guarantee a fair trail.
More Trials
Minutes after Saddam left the courtroom, his former presidential secretary Abed Hamid Mahmud was brought in.
Ten other top members of the former regime were due to follow including former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz.
Saddam’s first cousin Ali Hassan Al-Majid, nicknamed Chemical Ali for the 1988 gassing of the Kurds, and ex-vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan are among Saddam’s former chief aides who will also be read their charges on Thursday.
They have been held under tight security at Camp Cropper, a US military detention centre at Baghdad’s former international airport, according to a humanitarian organization. They will remain guarded by the so-called US-led multinational forces.
The trial came one day after Iraq’s interim government took legal custody of Saddam and 11 of his top aides from the US-led military.
