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)

But on the way, their trucks turned onto an unpaved road and they suspected they were going to be shot. The convoy stopped and they heard the sound of gunfire, he told the court.

"We knew it was the people in the other vehicle being shot and our turn would be next," he testified. "We exchanged forgiveness and we were weeping.

"At that point, we decided that if they came to kill us, we would attack them," he recalled. "We decided that even if one person survived, he could be a witness and tell the world of our fate. I was flashing back to the image of my son, who was 2 years old, and I was thinking of my mother, who was going to lose her son."

When the guards began taking the detainees out of the truck, they attacked, he said.

As Saddam listened attentively to the Arabic translation of the Kurdish-language testimony, the witness said the guards fired into the truck from the outside.

"They continued to fire all over the vehicle from every direction and I was injured by a bullet in my back," he said.

He managed to flee the vehicle and hide in some bushes. Others also survived but with wounds, he said.

The trial later adjourned until Thursday to hear more prosecution witnesses.

Saddam and six co-defendants are standing trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity during an offensive against the Kurds in 1987-88 that was known as Operation Anfal. The prosecution says about 180,000, mainly civilians, were killed.

Saddam and one other defendant are also charged with genocide.

The seven defendants face death by hanging if convicted.

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Associated Press writers Sinan Salaheddin reported from Baghdad, Iraq, and Jamal Halaby from Amman, Jordan. Some material in this story came from a pool report at the trial in Baghdad.