Saddam trial judge throws out defence lawyer

The chief judge ordered a defence lawyer to be forced out of the Baghdad courtroom and shouted down Saddam Hussein in arguments today at the start of a new session of the trial of the former Iraqi leader and members of his regime.

The arguments started when defence lawyer Bushra Khalil tried to speak, and chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman told her to wait. When she tried to continue, he shouted at her: “Sit down. Sit down.”

“I just want to say one word,” she said, but Abdel-Rahman yelled at the guards to take her away. In anger, Khalil pulled off her judicial robe and threw it on the floor, then tried to push away guards who were grabbing her hands, yelling: “Get away from me.”

As she was pulled out of the court, Saddam – sitting in the defendants’ pen - shouted an objection, and Abdel-Rahman told him to be silent. “I’m Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq. I am above all,” Saddam shouted back.

“You are a defendant not, not a president,” the judge barked.

The stormy start was a contrast to recent sessions that have been remarkably orderly, after Abdel-Rahman took a tough line to put a stop to frequent outbursts by Saddam and his co-defendants.

But Abdel-Rahman has shown a short temper with the Jordanian-born Khalil, the only woman on the defence team, throwing her out of the court once before when she tried to argue a point.

Saddam and several former top aides on trial for their alleged roles in a 1982 massacre in the Iraqi town of Dujail in reprisal for an assassination attempt on the Iraqi dictator.