Handwriting experts confirm Saddam signed death sentences

HANDWRITING experts authenticated Saddam Hussein’s signature on memos approving death sentences for 148 Shi’ites and the confiscation of farmlands during the 1980s, the judge said yesterday.

Saddam was silent through the three-hour session in Baghdad, but several of his seven co-defendants disputed the experts’ report, calling it biased and demanding that an international panel examine the documents.

The eight defendants are on trial for the deaths of the 148 Shi’ites and the imprisonment of hundreds of others in a crackdown launched following an assassination attempt against Saddam in the mainly Shi’ite town of Dujail in 1982.

In yesterday’s session, chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman read the report from the experts saying the signatures on two memos, dated October 10, 1982, and June 16, 1984, “matched the signatures of Saddam Hussein” on other documents not related to the Dujail case. The 1984 memo approves the death sentences against the 148, issued by Saddam’s Revolutionary Court two days earlier.

The 1982 document orders that farmlands taken from Dujail families in retaliation for the assassination attempt be handed over to the Agriculture Ministry.

The report did not give details on the documents’ contents, but the dates and catalogue numbers matched those of the two memos, presented to the court by prosecutors earlier in the six-month trial.

After a session of three hours, Judge Abdel-Rahman adjourned the trial until April 24 to allow experts to look at more documents.

Saddam had refused to confirm or deny his signatures on the documents. Ibrahim and some of the other co-defendants had claimed that their alleged signatures were forged.

The defence has argued that the crackdown in Dujail was legal because it was in response to the shooting attack on Saddam.

Meanwhile, the country’s parliament will convene today after a three-day delay despite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s refusal to step aside and break the deadlock over a new government. Speaker Adnan Pachachi confirmed that a session would be held but began a closed-door meeting and was unavailable for further details.

The 275-member assembly had been set to convene on Monday but agreed to a delay to give Shi’ites time to resolve the dispute over their nomination of Mr al-Jaafari to head the government. Sunni and Kurdish parties have rejected him.