Saddam in the dock: Key quotes

2004-07-01 22:02

Baghdad - Here are key quotes from Saddam Hussein's first day in the dock when the former dictator stood his ground in the face of a raft of capital charges.

The hearing was held in tight security, however, with access heavily restricted and video footage vetted by the US military before release.

An official transcript of the verbal exchange was not immediately available. The following quotes were provided by a tribunal official and CNN, who were allowed a correspondent at the hearing:

"I am the president of Iraq and I am an Iraqi," the jailed dictator told a judge at the Special Iraqi Trubunal at the outset of the hearing.

In an apparent display of mockery for the process, Saddam at one point declared: "Bush is a villain, all of this is theatre. It is for his re-election."

Told he faced charges for his disastrous 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which led to the following year's Gulf War and 12 years of UN sanctions before a US-led coalition eventually toppled him, Saddam thundered: "Kuwait is an Iraqi territory. It was not an invasion.

"I returned to Kuwait because the Kuwaitis were buying Iraqi women for 10 dinars ... The Kuwaitis are dogs."

To which the judge responded: "Words like that are not permitted in this court."

As for the gassing of the Kurds in Halabja in 1988, Saddam said merely: "I heard about it in the media."

When told he had the right to hire a defence lawyer, the ex-president said, "According to the Americans I have millions of dollars in Geneva so I should be able to afford that."

He chastised the judge: "You should not work for the law of the coalition forces. They were invading forces not coalition forces."

At the end of the 30-minute hearing, Saddam declined to sign a document acknowledging that he understood his rights.

"Please excuse me from not signing this without the presence of a lawyer. I do not want to commit to an act that could be considered hasty," he said.

The judge turned around and told the court: "Let it known to the court that Saddam Hussein has not acknowledged his rights."

- AFP