BAGHDAD, 24 October 2005 — A key witness who is dying of cancer gave testimony yesterday to the Iraqi court trying ousted President Saddam Hussein on murder and torture charges, a source close to the court said.
Court officials “have recorded the testimony of this individual”, a source close to the court said. “His words were recorded and written down on paper.”
Court officials fear that Waddah Khalil, a former senior intelligence officer in Saddam’s regime, could die before the next session of the Iraqi Special Tribunal. After the first day in court on Oct. 19 the trial was adjourned until Nov. 28. Saddam and seven co-defendants face charges related to the killing of 143 Shiites from the village of Dujail following a failed attempt there on the Iraqi leader’s life in July 1982. The defendants have all claimed their innocence.
Meanwhile, at least three car bombs and several roadside bombs hit US and Iraqi security forces in Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk yesterday, killing at least eight people and wounding dozens more, Iraqi police said.
In the first of yesterday’s attacks, a car bomb killed four people, including two police officers, when it exploded near an Iraqi police patrol in central Baghdad. The blast also injured 14 others, both police and civilians. Another car bomb in the northeastern Zaiuna district of the capital targeted a US patrol of three Humvee armored vehicles, according to Iraqi police who said at least three US soldiers were wounded and one Humvee was set alight. There was no immediate confirmation from the US military.
Iraqi police also reported that one US soldier was killed and one wounded when a roadside bomb hit a US patrol in central Baghdad. The US military had no immediate information.
In Kirkuk yesterday, seven Iraqi civilians were wounded when a car driven by a suicide bomber rammed a US Humvee, Iraqi police said. There was no immediate word from the US military on whether there were any US casualties.
Another Iraqi was killed and three wounded by a roadside bomb in Kirkuk, police Col. Taha Abdulla said, while other attacks in Baquba and Tikrit killed two Iraqi police officers.
There were also reports of new attacks on Iraq’s vital oil industry, a frequent target of the insurgency. Four sabotage blasts have brought oil exports from northern Iraq to a halt and it could take up to one month for repairs, an oil official said yesterday.
The Ceyhan pipeline, designed to carry more than 1.5 million barrels per day, has been closed for most of the post-US invasion era due to sabotage. It runs through Sunni Arab areas hostile to American forces and the US-backed government.
