'Forgive and shake hands'
2006-11-07 19:38
Baghdad - Saddam Hussein, back in court two
days after being sentenced to hang for crimes against humanity,
urged Iraqis on Tuesday to seek reconciliation.
Invoking Prophet Muhammad and Jesus, Saddam told a court
trying him for genocide against Kurds: "I call on all Iraqis,
Arabs and Kurds, to forgive, reconcile and shake hands."
Saddam met his death sentence in the first trial on Sunday
with cries of "God is Greatest!" and "Down with the invaders!".
On Tuesday he was unusually subdued during a session in
which he quietly listened to witnesses recount how they were
detained, shot or gassed by Iraqi soldiers in the late 1980s.
Saddam and six former commanders face charges of genocide
for their roles in the 1988 Anfal (Spoils of War) military
campaign against ethnic Kurds.
Prosecutors say up to 180 000
Kurds were killed, many of them by gas attacks.
The ousted president's fate after the earlier trial is now
in the hands of an appellate chamber. No execution is likely
before next year.
On Sunday, Saddam refused to stand up when the judge began
reading his verdict.
When a guard was ordered to make him get to
his feet, Saddam shouted: "Don't twist my hand, you fool!"
Challenged witness
When he was summoned by the judge on Tuesday, Saddam -
dressed in a black suit and tie-less shirt and smiling faintly -
filed into the marbled courtroom, once a palatial office of his
Ba'ath party, and made his way quietly to his seat.
At one point, the fallen strongman challenged a witness who
took his shirt off to show what he said were scars suffered
after being shot on Saddam's orders.
"So these people in the cage or some of them carried out the
acts directly?" Saddam politely addressed the judge.
"When he says there are two officers, what do they look
like? Does this bring us to the truth?"
Witness Qahar Khalil Mohammad told the court he and other
villagers had surrendered to Iraqi soldiers after being promised
that Saddam had issued an amnesty.
Instead, they were lined up
at the bottom of a hill and soldiers opened fire.
"When they fired in our direction we all fell to the
ground," he said.
"I saw my father and two brothers had been
killed as well as 18 of my other relatives."
He was wounded, but managed to survive, he said.