Judge allows Saddam to attend new trial session

Defence witnesses took the stand in the trial of Saddam Hussein’s trial in Baghdad today, and the former Iraqi leader attended the session after being kept out of the courtroom yesterday.

Saddam was smiling as he entered the courtroom along with the other seven defendants, but said nothing as he took his seat in the defendants’ pen.

In yesterday’s session, only three lower-level defendants were brought into the court because the defence witnesses being heard concerned only their cases.

Chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman rejected defence requests that all the defendants be allowed to attend, saying their presence was not necessary.

But he changed his mind for today’s session, telling the court that all the defendants would be allowed to be present in case their names came up in the testimony.

The witnesses yesterday and today were testifying on behalf of Abdullah Kazim al-Ruwayyid and his son Mizhar, two local Baath Party officials accused of helping a crackdown against Shiites in the town of Dujail in the 1980s.

Saddam and the other defendants have been charged with crimes against humanity for the crackdown, in which hundreds of Dujail residents were imprisoned, some undergoing torture, and 148 were killed.

The defendants face possible execution by hanging if convicted.