Saddam: Family buried alive
2006-10-09 18:05
Baghdad - Saddam Hussein's forces buried a
Kurdish family alive in a mass grave during a military operation
against ethnic Kurds in the 1980s, a Kurdish woman told the
genocide trial of the ousted Iraqi leader on Monday.
The court also heard grim testimony about conditions at
Nugrat Salman, a desert prison facility in southern Iraq, where
poor food and polluted water caused many Kurds who had been
rounded up and sent there to fall ill and die.
Two of the four witnesses to testify on Monday spoke about a
black dog that dug up and ate the bodies of dead prisoners, and
one told how prison guards forced women - including young girls - to bathe in front of them while shooting over their heads.
They were the latest to take the stand to testify about
Saddam's 1988 Anfal (Spoils of War) campaign against the Kurds
in northern Iraq, in which prosecutors say tens of thousands
were killed in poison gas attacks, bombings or executed.
IDs found in mass grave
"I know the fate of my family. They were buried alive," one
Kurdish woman told the court.
"I would like to ask Saddam a
question: 'What was the guilt of women and children?'".
The court heard that identity cards belonging to five of her
sisters had been found in mass graves in Samawa in south Iraq.
The woman did not say how she knew her family was buried
alive, but US-led forensic experts have said some victims
unearthed from mass graves were still alive when they were
buried, despite having been shot, most of them at close range.
Thousands of Kurds, including many women and children, were
taken from their villages, executed and then dumped in mass
graves in northern and southern Iraq, prosecutors say.
In an earlier hearing, Saddam defended his policy of
crushing Kurdish rebels in the 1980s as his Sunni-led government
fought a war against neighbouring Shi'ite Iran, accusing them of
being "agents of Iran and Zionism".