BAGHDAD, Iraq - Experts confirmed the authenticity of Saddam Hussein's signature on documents
connected to a crackdown on Shiites in the 1980s, prosecutors said Monday in a
new session of the trial of the former Iraqi leader and seven co-defendants.
Former Iraqi president
Saddam Hussein testifies during cross-examination at his trial in
Baghdad's Green Zone April 5, 2006. Saddam Hussein and seven co-accused
returned to court on Monday to face charges of crimes against humanity, a
Reuters witness said. [Reuters] |
The report from handwriting experts said a signature on
a document approving rewards for intelligence agents involved in the crackdown
was Saddam's, prosecutors said, reading from the report.
In an earlier session, Saddam had refused to confirm or deny his signature.
Some of his co-defendants had said their alleged signatures on other documents
were forgeries.
The defense immediately disputed the experts' results and insisted the
documents be analyzed by other experts not affiliated with the Iraqi Interior
Ministry.
"We demand international experts with international expertise," defense
lawyer Khamis al-Obaidi said.
After hearing the report, the judge adjourned the court until Wednesday to
give the experts time to look at more documents.
Former Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein listens to chief Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman during his trial
held under tight security in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone April
17, 2006. Saddam and seven co-accused returned to court on Monday and
proceedings focused on attempts to prove the ousted Iraqi president signed
documents implicating him in crimes against humanity.
[Reuters] |
Saddam and the seven former members of
his regime are on trial for the deaths of 148 Shiites and the imprisonment and
torture of others after a 1982 assassination attempt against the former Iraqi
leader in the Shiite town of Dujail. The defendants face possible execution by
hanging if convicted.
Dressed in a black suit and white shirt, Saddam sat silently in the court
Monday along with his co-defendants.
The report said Saddam and his top co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim — Saddam's
half brother and former head of the Mukhabarat intelligence agency — refused to
give the experts samples of their handwriting for comparison. So the experts
compared the signatures to other documents not related to the case, the report
said.
The experts confirmed Ibrahim's signatures on several documents connected to
the crackdown, the report said. Among them was a memo requesting the rewards for
six Mukhabarat officers involved in the crackdown, which Saddam allegedly
approved. Another listed Dujail families whose farmlands were to be razed in
retaliation for the incident.
The defendants have insisted their actions in the crackdown were legal
because they were taken in response to the attempt to kill Saddam as he drove
through Dujail on July 8, 1982.
The prosecution has sought to show that the crackdown went far beyond the
actual perpetrators of the attack to punish the mainly Shiite town.
It presented intelligence and other documents from the time showing that
entire families — including women and children — were arrested in the sweep that
followed and imprisoned for years without trial. It said minors — including an
11-year-old boy — were among those sentenced to death for the attack.
Dujail residents, including several women, have testified in court that they
were tortured with electrical shocks and beatings during their
imprisonment.