Detainees were buried alive, Saddam trial told

Prison guards under Saddam Hussein used to bury detainees alive and watch women as they bathed, occasionally shooting over their heads, a former female prisoner testified today in the Baghdad genocide trial of the former Iraqi president.

Speaking in Kurdish through an Arabic interpreter, the 31-year-old witness recalled what she saw as a 13-year-old Kurdish girl who was detained during Saddam’s offensive against the Kurds in the late 1980s.