Nation divided over former leader as Iraqis tune in to trial

IRAQIS gathered around televisions to watch Saddam Hussein's trial yesterday, with Shi'ite victims of his regime calling the proceedings long-overdue justice, but some Sunni Arabs condemning it as unfair humiliation of the former leader.

In Kazimiyah, a northern Baghdad suburb, construction worker Salman Zaboun Shanan, aged 53, took the day from work to watch Al-Arabiya TV, a Dubai-based satellite channel, which showed the trial from the capital's highly fortified Green Zone.

During Saddam's regime, seven members of Shanan's nine-member family were imprisoned because of their links to the Najaf Hawza, the Shi'ites' religious leadership.