Saddam trial shown signed order for execution of Shi'ites

PROSECUTORS at Saddam Hussein's trial presented a document yesterday they said was signed by the former leader approving the executions of more than 140 Shi'ites in southern Iraq after an assassination attempt in the 1980s.

After about two hours of hearing documents, the court adjourned until Wednesday.

The document was among several presented by chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi concerning the killings of Shi'ites from the town of Dujail in 1982.

A memo from the Revolutionary Court, dated June 14, 1984, announced that 148 suspects had been sentenced to death by hanging and listed their names. The prosecutor said the signature on the memo was that of the court's head, Awad al-Bandar, one of Saddam's co-defendants.

A document dated two days later was a presidential order approving all 148 death sentences. The paper was signed by Saddam, Mr al-Moussawi said, displaying the document with the signature on a screen in the courtroom.

The sentences were passed after an "imaginary trial", Mr al-Moussawi told the court. "None of the defendants were brought to court. Their statements were never recorded," he said.

The documents were presented in an unusually quiet session, attended by Saddam's lawyers after they ended a month-long boycott of the tribunal.

The defence team's participation appeared to vindicate the tough approach chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman has taken since taking over the tribunal last month, pushing ahead with the proceedings even when the lawyers - and, at times, the defendants themselves - refused to attend.

Yesterday's session was one of the most orderly since the trial began in October. Saddam and his seven co-defendants entered the court and took their seats silently - in sharp contrast with nearly every other session, which began with Saddam and his half brother Barzan Ibrahim shouting slogans or arguing with the judge. The former Iraqi president has also ended a hunger strike he and some co-defendants started on February 12.

Prosecutors also displayed a March 1985 document said to be signed by Ibrahim - then the head of the Mukhabarat intelligence agency - ordering the executions to be carried out. The document listed 148 names. Another document from the Revolutionary Court, dated Mach 23, 1985, confirmed that the executions took place.

But it turned out that not all 148 had been executed.

A report by the investigation said 96 people were executed, but the remainder had been "liquidated during interrogations."

Among the 96 were four people executed by mistake, even though their names were not on the list of those sentenced to death and they had been ordered released, the report said.