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Hussein's Day at Trial: More Rancor and a Fight
Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein argues with new chief judge, Rauf Rashid Abdel Rahman, after his half brother, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, was forcibly removed from their trial held in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, 29 January, 2006. Deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein walked out from the court a few minutes after his trial resumed, an AFP correspondent said. Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants face charges over the 1982 killing of 148 people in the village of Dujail. They could face the death penalty if found guilty.
(David Furst - Afp/Getty Images)
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"Take him out of the courtroom," Abdel-Rahman ordered.
"I ruled you for 35 years and now you say, 'Take him out of the room?' " Hussein replied, wagging his finger at the judge. "Shame on you. I have decided to leave. I talked to you in legal language and you didn't listen. You are an Iraqi. It is not allowed to say, 'Take him out of the room,' about Saddam Hussein. Is this how a position changes people?"
After calling Hussein an "old man," Abdel-Rahman enforced his order. Hussein walked out, casting scornful glares around the courtroom. He was escorted by two guards who did not touch him.
There were no reports of protests demanding Hussein's execution, or in his support, as there have been during other trial days. But a rocket killed a former Iraqi general living in Tikrit, Hussein's home town north of Baghdad, when it struck his house.
As in the past, the courtroom theatrics overshadowed the testimony of the three witnesses against Hussein, who, like their predecessors, described suffering brutal punishments at the hands of the Hussein government.
A woman who spoke while concealed behind a beige curtain said she and her family had been imprisoned for four years after the assassination attempt. After enduring torture with electric shock at the police station, she said, they spent 11 months in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, where they were frequently put into solitary cells.
"When the baby cried, he took it and put it in the solitary cell," she said of a guard. "It was 2 years old. The food and treatment were beyond description."
Special correspondents Omar Fekeiki and Bassam Sebti contributed to this report.
