Saddam shouts at judge

2006-01-30 07:59

Hamza Hendawi

Baghdad - A new judge cracked down in a chaotic session of Saddam Hussein's trial, ordering a co-defendant and a lawyer expelled from the courtroom. The entire defence team left in protest and Saddam was escorted out after a shouting match in which he yelled, "Down with America!"

Despite the turmoil in the courtroom on Sunday, chief judge Raouf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman pushed ahead, replacing the defence lawyers with court-appointed attorneys and hearing three prosecution witnesses before adjourning the trial until later this week.

It was Abdel-Rahman's first session at the helm, replacing a jurist who stepped down amid criticism that he was not doing enough to stop Saddam and his half brother, co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim, from dominating the trial with frequent outbursts and disruptions.

Defence lawyers criticised the tough approach, saying it was preventing Saddam and his seven co-defendants from getting a fair trial. The eight could face death by hanging if convicted in the killing of at least 140 Shi'ites after a July 1982 attempt on Saddam's life in the town of Dujail north of Baghdad.

Court is 'lawless'

Former United States Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who is part of Saddam's defence team but did not attend Sunday's session, denounced the court as "lawless" and repeated calls for it to be moved out of Iraq.

"Now the court is seated without the defendants' counsel of choice. This is wrong," Clark said, speaking from New York.

The session, which was the first since December 22, rapidly degenerated into chaos. Ibrahim called the court "the daughter of a whore" and refused to sit down. Abdel-Rahman ordered him removed.

Then defence lawyer Salih al-Armouti, a Jordanian, was forcibly removed from the court for yelling at Abdel-Rahman.

"This is an unjust and illegitimate court," Khalil al-Dulaimi, Saddam's chief lawyer, told the judge on the way out.

Protesting Ibrahim's expulsion and shouting "down with traitors" and "down with America," Saddam got into a heated argument with the judge, rejecting the court-appointed lawyers and demanding to leave.

When the judge ordered guards to remove him, Saddam - holding a Qur'an under his arm - became indignant, saying he was choosing to go and referring to his time in power.

After two more defendants asked to leave, the trial continued - with only four defendants present and none of their original lawyers.

The court-appointed lawyers declined opportunities to cross-examine the three witnesses, who all spoke of mass detentions and torture after the attempt on Saddam's life.

Richard Dicker, the head of the International Justice Programme at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the failure to question the witnesses was "probably the most disturbing part of the day."

"The events take us further away from the basic practices of fairness that are necessary in any trial and especially in a trial of this significance," he said.

- SAPA