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.