Shi’ite attack was ‘justified’

SADDAM HUSSEIN’S trial resumed yesterday, and heard that his regime was justified in a crackdown on Shi’ites.

During the session, chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman threw out of the court a man in the audience who the defence said was a member of a Shi’ite militia who had threatened lawyers in the past.

Judge Abdel-Rahman ordered the man in the audience to leave the court.

The court heard a series of defence witnesses testifying on behalf of Saddam and two of his top co-defendants — former Mukhabarat intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim, and the former head of Saddam’s Revolutionary Court, Awad al-Bandar.

Saddam and seven former members of his regime are on trial on charges of crimes against humanity.