Defendants in Saddam trial try to dispute documents

Defendants in the trial of Saddam Hussein today tried to dispute documents put forward by prosecutors detailing a wave of imprisonments and executions of Shiites in the 1980s, including letters by informants pointing out families for arrest.

For a second day, the chief prosecutor showed document after document on an overhead screen outlining the bureaucracy behind a crackdown that led to the imprisonment of nearly 400 people, including women and children as young as three months old, and the executions of 148 people following a 1982 attempt on Saddam’s life in the town of Dujail.