Witness testifies of torture by Iraq's security service

A noticeably calmer Saddam Hussein sat quietly in his defendant’s chair at the resumption of his trial today, two weeks after he called the court “unjust” and boycotted a session. When the judge refused to let him take a break to pray, the former leader closed his eyes and appeared to pray from his seat.

Saddam and seven co-defendants are on trial in the deaths of more than 140 Shiite Muslims following a 1982 assassination attempt against him in the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad.

The court heard testimony from a witness about how Saddam’s regime killed and tortured people from Dujail – administering electric shocks and pouring melted plastic onto skin.

During previous sessions, Saddam has been defiant and combative at times, often trying to dominate the courtroom. He and his half brother – Barazan Ibrahim, who was head of the Iraqi intelligence during the Dujail incident - have used the procedures to protest their own conditions in detention.

The deposed president had refused to attend the previous session on December 7. “I will not come to an unjust court! Go to hell!” he said in an outburst in court the day before.

But today, his behaviour was calmer, and he appeared clean-shaven and in fresh clothes, wearing a dark suit but no tie. Previously during the trial, Saddam has appeared dishevelled and has complained about being held in unsanitary conditions.

After greeting the court with a traditional “Peace be upon you,” he sat quietly in the defendants’ area and appeared to pay close attention to the proceedings, at times taking notes.

Later on, Saddam, interrupting a witness, asked the judge if the court could take a break for prayer. Though the witness agreed, the judge ordered the trial to continue. About 10 minutes later, Saddam swung his chair to the left, closed his eyes and repeatedly bowed his head in what appeared to be about a minute-long prayer, the first time he has done that in court.

Muslims are required to pray five days a day at specific times.

The trial was marked by one unruly outburst – from Saddam’s half-brother. In an exchange that was largely edited out of the televised feed, Ibrahim called the witness “a dog” and his dead brothers “rotten dogs.” Guards entered the court and threatened to take him out, but Ibrahim wagged his finger at them, saying he could only be ordered to leave by the judge, who allowed him to stay.

The prosecution’s first witness today was a man who testified about killings and torture in Dujail after the attempt to assassinate Saddam. Ali Hassan Mohammed al-Haidari, who was 14 in 1982, started off by quoting from the Koran, the Islamic holy book, about how evil would be defeated.

As al-Haidari turned to Saddam, who finished the phrase with him, the judge, in an apparent early bid to take control of a courtroom that has often been unruly, told the witness to address the court and not Saddam directly.

It was Saddam’s first court appearance following last week’s election, when Iraqis swarmed to the polls to vote for the country’s first full-term parliament since his downfall.

During previous sessions, Saddam has been defiant and combative at times, often trying to dominate the courtroom. He and his half brother Ibrahim, who was head of the Iraqi intelligence during the Dujail incident – have used the procedures to protest their own conditions in detention.

At another point when the witness referred to Saddam by name, the former leader interrupted, saying “Saddam who?” implying the proper respect hadn’t been shown. The judge asked the witness whom he meant, and the witness restated: “I mean the former Iraqi president.”

Al-Haidari, whose brother was the first witness at Saddam’s trial, testified that seven of his brothers were executed by Saddam’s regime and so far their bodies have not been found.

“During the period of Saddam’s rule we were waiting for their release. Until this day we have not received their bodies and we don’t know where they were buried,” he said.

Al-Haidari said that he and other residents from Dujail – including family members – were taken to Baghdad and thrown into a security services prison, where people from “9 to 90” were held.

Blood poured from head wounds and skin was pale from electric shocks, he testified. Security officials would drip melted hoses on detainees, only to pull it off after it cooled, tearing skin off with it, he said.

“I cannot express all that suffering and pain we faced in the 70 days inside,” he said.

The court – which held its first session on October 19 – has now heard from 10 witnesses, who often gave emotional testimonies of random arrests, hunger and beatings while in custody and torture in detention.

Khamis al-Ubeidi, a lawyer on Saddam’s defence team, argued that the “witnesses have no legal value. Their testimonies are based on coaching and unjustified narrative.”

He said the defence team had security concerns that it wanted to tell the court about.

“The court has to provide the lawyers and the defence witnesses with security,” he said yesterday. “How can a lawyer work if he cannot move freely because of the security situation?”

Some Iraqi government officials have said they hope the trial of Saddam will help heal the wounds of his regime’s victims and bring Iraqis closer together.

But the trial has also highlighted divisions between Iraq’s various ethnic and sectarian groups, with many Sunni Arabs expressing sympathy with the former president and even nostalgia for his era.

By contrast, many Shiites and Kurds gloated over seeing the once powerful Saddam reduced to a defendant.

The prosecution of Saddam could be a lengthy process.

The Dujail case is the first of up to a dozen that prosecutors plan to bring to trial against Saddam and his Baath Party inner circle for atrocities during their 23-year rule.

The trial is taking place in the five-storey marble building that once served as the National Command Headquarters of Saddam’s feared Baath Party. The building in Baghdad’s Green Zone – the heavily fortified district where Iraq’s government, parliament and the US Embassy are located – was heavily guarded.