Quiet birthday for Saddam

2006-04-28 16:38

Simon Ostrovsky

Baghdad - Iraq's ousted leader Saddam Hussein, being tried on charges of crimes against humanity, spent his third birthday in a row behind bars as he turned 69 on Friday.

United States officials were tight-lipped about what Saddam was up to on his birthday. US military spokersperson said: "We don't have much interest in providing any colour to Saddam's life."

Even in his hometown of Tikrit, Saddam's birthday passed unnoticed, although a few dozen posters bearing his portrait were seen in the majority Sunni city of Samarra, north of Baghdad.

Sectarian violence

Samarra, the site of a February bomb blast that damaged a revered Shi'ite shrine sparking a wave of sectarian violence that had raged ever since, still showed modest support for the ousted Sunni president.

Although it was generally accepted that Saddam killed tens of thousands of his own citizens, some residents expressed their nostalgia for his brutal, but more stable rule.

An elderly Samarra resident said: "The occupiers and their agents among the new leaders are responsible for more massacres in this country than Saddam Hussein."

A merchant said: "He is better than the politicians of today, who have brought the country neither safety nor stability."

Saddam 'treated humanely'

Saddam was being tried by an Iraqi tribunal on charges including murder and torture over the killing of Shi'ites after an attempt on his life in Dujail in 1982.

According to US spokesperson, American forces oversaw his detention at the request of the Iraqi authorities "for security reasons. He is treated humanely and in full accordance with international standards."

Saddam first went on trial in October last year and was last seen on television on April 22 in the courtroom for the latest hearing along with seven former regime officials.

The trial was set to resume on May 15 with the defence expected to produce its first witnesses and Saddam would also soon face charges of genocide for the Anfal campaign of the late 1980s in at least 100 000 were killed, mostly Kurds.

Saddam was found hiding in a hole in December 2003 after the US-led invasion in March of that year.

- AFP