BAGHDAD, 2 July 2004 — More than a year after he was toppled from power, Saddam Hussein was hauled before an Iraqi court yesterday to hear charges of war crimes and genocide. Looking emaciated, the former president rejected the accusations and said “the real criminal” was US President George W. Bush.
Saddam was handcuffed when brought to the court but the shackles were removed for the 30-minute arraignment at Camp Victory, one of his former palaces on the outskirts of Baghdad.
“I am Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq,” Saddam said unprompted, sitting down in a chair facing the judge on the other side of a wooden railing. When asked his name, he repeated it in full: “Saddam Hussein Al-Majid, president of Iraq.”
Saddam refused to sign a list of charges against him unless he had legal counsel, and he questioned the court’s jurisdiction.
“Please allow me not to sign until the lawyers are present. ... Anyhow, when you take a procedure to bring me here again, present me with all these papers with the presence of lawyers. Why would you behave in a manner that we might call hasty later on?” he said.
Saddam also accused the White House of orchestrating the hearing. “You know that this is all a theater by Bush, the criminal, to help him with his campaign,” he said.
Saddam, 67, refused to recognize that he was guilty of a crime in invading Kuwait in 1990, jabbing his finger toward the judge and saying: “I’m surprised you’re charging me with that as an Iraqi when everyone knows that Kuwait is part of Iraq.”
The judge told him these were legal procedures, but Saddam interrupted him. “Law, what law?” he asked.
“You are putting Saddam on trial when the Kuwaitis said they could buy Iraqi women for 10 dinars on the street. The Iraqi soldiers went to defend the honor of Iraq, so what right do these dogs have?” he said.
At this point, the judge admonished him and said he would not tolerate such language in the courtroom.
The seven broad charges against Saddam are the killing of religious figures in 1974; gassing of Kurds in Halabja in 1988; killing the Kurdish Barzani clan in 1983; killing members of political parties in the last 30 years; the 1986-88 “Anfal” campaign of displacing Kurds; the suppression of the 1991 uprisings by Kurds and Shiites; and the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Similar hearings were held later for 11 of his former aides, including former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and Ali Hassan Al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali” for his alleged role in using poison gas against Kurds and Iranians.
After the 30-minute session, the jailed dictator’s trusted secretary Abed Hamid Mahmoud was the second hauled before the court.
The fallen president was transported to the courtroom in an armored bus flanked by four Humvees and an ambulance after being flown in by helicopter from his undisclosed place of detention. Upon arrival, he was led in chains and handcuffs into a building by two Iraqi prison guards, while six more guards stood to attention at the door.
Arab and Western lawyers claiming to represent Saddam were outraged that they were denied the right to represent him at the arraignment. In Amman, the lawyers dubbed the trial illegal, but said they were “determined” to go to Iraq to defend him despite security perils and threats they had received from Iraqi Justice Minister Malek Dohan.
“This court is illegal because it has been appointed by an illegal government, which is appointed by the occupation forces,” head of Saddam’s defense team Mohammad Rashdan told a press conference. “Under the Iraqi constitution, which is still in force, the Iraqi president enjoys immunity against judicial proceedings,” he said.
“This is tyranny and absolute cruelty,” said Ziad Al-Khasawneh, who said he was hired by Saddam’s wife, Sajidah. “How can this be called a fair trial if President Saddam Hussein was denied his basic right to a lawyer?”
Told by the judge in Baghdad that legal counsel would be provided later if he could not pay for his own lawyers, Saddam said: “But everyone says, the Americans say, I have millions of dollars stashed away in Geneva. Why shouldn’t I afford a lawyer?”
Kuwait slammed Saddam for defending Iraq’s invasion of his country. “The criminal still believes he is the president of Iraq,” Mohammed Abul Hassan said. “Just imagine if he was still ruling Iraq.”
Abul Hassan reacted angrily to Saddam’s remarks about Kuwaitis and said his punishment should “certainly be execution.”
On Saddam’s remarks about invading Kuwait, the minister said: “He wants to prove to Iraqis that he is still defending an important issue. He showed the deep hatred he still has, but the judge was firm and he stopped him.”
President Bush welcomed Saddam’s appearance in court. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said it was an “important step” for the war-torn country.
“The president is pleased that Saddam Hussein and his regime leaders are going to be brought to justice by the Iraqi people in an Iraqi court for the atrocities his regime committed,” McClellan told reporters in Washington.
“This is an important step that will help the Iraqi people bring closure to the dark past of Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship,” he added, noting that Saddam is “going to face justice he denied Iraqi people.”
