BAGHDAD, 11 July 2006 — The last phase of the turbulent trial of Saddam Hussein on charges of crimes against humanity resumed yesterday with a boycott by the deposed Iraqi leader and key members of the defense team. The Iraqi High Tribunal, which is in charge of trying Saddam and his seven former cohorts, said it would continue to hear the defense’s closing arguments with or without Saddam or his lawyers.
Saddam and the co-defendants are accused of ordering the killing of 148 Shiite villagers in Dujail, north of Baghdad, in 1982 following a botched assassination attempt against the deposed leader. “The tribunal will continue its sessions today and in the next few days to hear the defense’s closing arguments, be it with lawyers appointed by the defendants or those appointed by the court,” the tribunal’s chief investigative judge Raed Juhi told reporters.
“If it is court-appointed lawyers, the tribunal can give them extra time to prepare their arguments.” In a letter to the tribunal’s chief judge, Saddam said he boycotted yesterday’s proceedings in Baghdad because he did not recognize the legitimacy of the court which he charged was making a mockery of justice. “The tribunal is lacking in all procedures established by international and Iraqi law,” said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by AFP. “For this reason, it seems there is a wish to condemn us for malicious American intentions.”
And Saddam’s main defense lawyer, Khalil Al-Dulaimi, said from Cairo that most of the defense team would also boycott the proceedings “until our demands are satisfied.” He said the lawyers wanted protection for them and their families to be provided by a “neutral third party,” and for their “right to defend to be respected.” Key defense team member Khamis Al-Obeidi was assassinated last month, the third defense lawyer to be killed since the start of the trial in October.
Juhi said the lawyers had declined security measures offered by Iraqi and US-led coalition forces similar to those accorded to the tribunal’s judges. As for their demand for extra time to prepare for closing arguments, the court’s spokesman said sufficient delays had been accorded already.
“The lawyers have asked not to be interrupted when making their arguments,” Juhi said. “But the tribunal has the right to decide on procedures.” Juhi said the lawyers had also asked for an investigation into Obeidi’s killing.
The only defendants present for yesterday’s session were Ali Daeh Ali and Mohammed Azzam Azzawi, both Baath party officials from Dujail. Chief prosecutor Jaafar Al-Mussawi had asked that charges be dropped against Azzawi and that the court show leniency to Ali.
Before the trial was adjourned until today, Ali denied his role in denouncing or writing reports against Dujail citizens who opposed the regime or had a role in plotting the failed attempt on Saddam’s life. He said such reports bearing his signature, which had been presented by prosecutors, were fakes.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s prime minister pleaded for Iraqis to “unite as brothers” as a fresh spasm of violence gripped Baghdad, where 60 people were killed at the weekend in a dramatic escalation of sectarian bloodletting. Two bomb blasts in a Shiite neighborhood killed 12 and wounded dozens, while gunmen ambushed a commuter bus in a Sunni district and shot dead seven people. Militiamen, believed to be Shiite, fought gunbattles in a southern Sunni district.
A new surge in violence between majority Shiites, oppressed under Saddam but now politically empowered, and his once dominant fellow Sunni Arabs has laid bare a deepening schism, despite Maliki’s efforts to promote national reconciliation. Two bombs blasted a Baghdad area that is a stronghold of Shiite militia fighters early yesterday, a day after suspected Shiite gunmen stormed through a Sunni area and killed over 40. Twelve people were killed and 62 wounded, police said, in the car bomb blasts near a telephone exchange in the eastern Talbiya district.
