Saddam admits to approving executions

SADDAM HUSSEIN was cross-examined for the first time in his six-month-old trial yesterday, saying he approved death sentences against Shi’ites in the 1980s.

He claimed that he believed that the evidence had proven they were involved in an assassination attempt against him.

Saddam, standing alone as the sole defendant in the courtroom, dodged some questions from prosecutors over his role in the crackdown, giving long speeches calling the court “illegitimate”.

He accused the current Shi’ite-led Interior Ministry of killing and torturing thousands of Iraqis and bickered with chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman.

The session came a day after prosecutors indicted Saddam on separate charges of genocide, accusing him of trying to exterminate Kurds in a 1980s campaign that killed an estimated 100,000 people. The charges will be dealt with in a separate trial.

In the current trial, Saddam and seven former members of his regime are charged with complicity in a crackdown against Shi’ites launched after a shooting attack on Saddam’s motorcade in the town of Dujail on July 8, 1982. In the sweep that followed, 148 Shi’ites were killed and hundreds were imprisoned, some of them undergoing torture.

Throughout the questioning, Saddam - dressed in a black suit and white shirt - appeared relaxed, frequently shooting grins at chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi and even reciting a short bit of poetry to the judge.

Mr al-Moussawi asked Saddam about his approval of death sentences passed against the 148 by his Revolutionary Court, which prosecutors have argued gave the Shi’ites only a cursory trial.

“That is one of the duties of the president,” Saddam replied. “I had the right to question the judgment. But I was convinced the evidence that was presented was sufficient” to show their guilt in the assassination attempt.

In a previous court session, Saddam acknowledged ordering the trial in which the 148 Shi’ites were sentenced to death, but has maintained his actions were legal because they were in response to the attempt to kill him.

In political developments, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said he is refusing to abandon his bid for a second term to break the deadlock over a new government, and more than 1,000 of his supporters rallied in the holy city of Karbala, urging an end to “US interference” in Iraqi politics.

Although parliament may have to decide Mr al-Jaafari’s future, Shi’ite officials said they are reluctant until there is a comprehensive deal among all ethnic- and religious-based parties, including an agreement on who will be the new president.

That indicated little progress has been made in resolving the standoff since Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw flew to Baghdad weekend and insisted Iraqis agree on a new leadership quickly.