Witness at Saddam Trial Recalls Massacre

Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein listens to prosecutors during his trial in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, Oct. 17, 2006. Saddam Hussein's genocide trial against the Kurds resumed Tuesday, a day after the ex-president predicted that insurgents would soon drive US-led forces out of Iraq. In an open letter to Iraqis that his lawyers released Monday, Saddam said Iraq's "liberation is at hand" _ an apparent attempt to cast himself as a statesman as Iraq teeters on the brink of civil war and the United States weighs what to do next. (AP Photo/David Furst, Pool) (David Furst - AP)

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A Kurdish witness at Saddam Hussein's genocide trial testified Wednesday that he survived a massacre by running and falling into a ditch full of bodies as troops fired on his group of detainees.

A second Kurd told of a separate massacre in which 35 detainees, knowing they were about to die, decided to attack their guards in the hope that if they struck first, at least one would live to tell the tale.

Speaking from behind a curtain to conceal his identity for fear of reprisal, the first witness said he was in a group of detainees who thought they were being taken to another detention center during the military offensive that Saddam's government waged against the Kurds in northern Iraq in 1988. But their convoy of trucks stopped in the desert.

"It was dark when they brought a group of people (prisoners) in front of the vehicle. The drivers got out of our vehicles and turned on the headlights."

Some prisoners tried to grab an automatic rifle from a guard, but they failed because they were "so weak," he said.

He said the soldiers opened fire, spraying the prisoners with bullets.

"It was really unbelievable, the number of people being killed like this. A detainee called Anwar recited the Islamic prayers before death and asked for forgiveness," the man testified.

"I ran and fell into a ditch. It was full of bodies. I fell on a body. It was still alive. It was his last breath," he said.

He was lightly wounded. He took off his clothes in the ditch, thinking he was more likely to blend into the color of the sand if he were naked. He then began running again.

"As I was running, I saw many pits, I saw many mounds, and I saw lots of people who had been shot," he said. "The desert was full of mounds that had people buried underneath."

The witness said he took refuge with some Kurds who lived near the massacre site, and traveled north. For 15 years, he lived in hiding, moving frequently, until Saddam was overthrown in 2003.

The second witness, who also testified from behind a curtain, said that after a few days in Tob Zawa detention camp in April 1988, he and other detainees were told they were being moved to another facility.