By SINAN SALAHEDDIN
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 13, 2006; 10:42 AM
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The chief judge declared an end to hearing defense witnesses in Saddam Hussein's trial Tuesday and said the prosecution will present its closing argument next week.
The declaration came despite complaints by the defense team that it has not had the freedom to properly present its case and that many of its motions were not ruled on by chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman in the nearly eight-month-old trial.
"For your client alone, you've presented 26 witnesses. If that's not enough to present your case, then 100 won't work," Abdel-Rahman told defense lawyer Khamis al-Obeidi, who insisted he still had "effective and useful" witnesses to call.
"I've finished hearing witnesses," Abdel-Rahman said. "We have heard your witnesses, we've listened to every word. God willing, it will all end fine."
"God willing," al-Obeidi said sullenly.
Abdel-Rahman adjourned the trial until Monday, when he said the prosecution would present its closing arguments. He said the defense would give its final statement July 10.
Presumably after that, the five-judge panel would adjourn to consider the fate of Saddam and seven former members of his regime. They could face execution by hanging if convicted.
One of Saddam's top co-defendants, Barzan Ibrahim, was absent after being thrown out of the court the day before for arguing with Abdel-Rahman. The judge said Tuesday that Ibrahim was being kept out "for his violations against the order of the court."
Abdel-Rahman scolded the defense team, telling lawyers to stop what he called "political speeches."
"This is the last session to hear the testimony of defense witnesses," he said. "We don't want speeches ... So chose one _ speeches or hearing witnesses."
Saddam and seven former members of his regime are charged with of crimes against humanity for a crackdown against Shiites in the town of Dujail, which was launched after a 1982 assassination attempt against the then-Iraqi leader. They are accused of illegally arresting hundreds of Shiites _ including women and children _ torturing some to death and killing 148 people who were sentenced to death in the attack on Saddam.
The court Tuesday heard a quick series of defense witnesses, including three former bodyguards of Saddam who were with him on the day of the shooting attack on his motorcade in Dujail. The witnesses testified anonymously from behind a curtain to protect them from reprisals.
They said Saddam ordered his guards to stop firing back when gunmen in a nearby palm grove shot at his car. "My understanding at that time the president did not want ... even an animal in the groves to be hurt by the bodyguards' fire," one witness said.
Another said some Dujail residents approached Saddam after the attack "and they were crying to apologize. I remember, he told them, 'They (the attackers) don't represent you, you are good people.'"
Abdel-Rahman angrily closed the court to the public for several hours after accusing a defense lawyer of trying to prompt a witness _ Saddam's half brother and former adviser Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan _ to make political speeches. Later, he allowed journalists back into the chamber and resumed a video broadcast of the session.
Tensions have grown in the court after the tough-talking Abdel-Rahman effectively shut down a defense attempt to discredit the prosecution's case. Last month, three witnesses testified that some of the 148 Shiites were still alive and living in Dujail.
The defense argued that, if the claims were true, the prosecution's portrayal of the crackdown was deeply flawed and that all the documents it presented should be reviewed for accuracy.
Abdel-Rahman, however, had the three witnesses arrested for perjury, along with a fourth witness who claimed that the chief prosecutor tried to bribe him to testify against Saddam.
On Monday, alleged confessions of the four witnesses were read in court, admitting they committed perjury either because they were intimidated by Saddam loyalists or offered rewards by the defense.
The defense team alleged the confessions were forced, and two of the witnesses _ who have since been released and fled abroad _ told The Associated Press they were beaten in detention to make them sign the confessions.
Ibrahim, Saddam's former intelligence chief, was dragged out of the court Monday by guards after he accused Abdel-Rahman of "terrorizing" the defense. When he tried to push off the guards who were grabbing him, they held his left arm and pushed him into a wall as they tried to hustle him out the door, causing an uproar among the defense lawyers.
"This is dictatorial," Ibrahim shouted.
"You know dictatorship," Abdel-Rahman sneered in reply.
An American lawyer on the defense team, Curtis Doebbler, said Tuesday that the confessions cast doubt on the court's fairness, saying they "were taken under coercive pressure from witnesses who have been beaten and arrested, held incommunicado. Reading those into the record indicates bias in any court in the world."
"These type of allegations from the side of the court draw into concern the impartiality of the court," he said.
Doebbler _ a visiting professor at Najah University in the West Bank _ is one of two American lawyers on the defense team, along with former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark.