Saddam’s Trial Resumes, but Without Him

What? Did I miss something about Saddam being in charge again? He’s calling in sick for work today. I say they get Hollywood on the phone and acquire the cart used to move Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs. Set him up right there inside of the playpen, and carry on with the trial. We’ve got to get this movie cut and in the can before everyone involved is murdered. Another week and the judge is probably going to wake up with a severed camel’s head under the covers!

Saddam’s Trial Resumes, but Without Him By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
37 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The trial of Saddam Hussein resumed Wednesday after a lengthy delay but without the former president, who had declared the day before that he would not take part in an “unjust” court.

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The seven other defendants and Saddam’s lawyers were present in the courtroom when Chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin convened the session at 3 p.m., about four hours late.

Amin said the court would inform Saddam about the proceedings that took place during his absence.

The judge then told defense lawyers the court would meet with them after the session to discuss security for the lawyers, which has become a major issue after two members of the defense team were murdered.

At the end of Tuesday’s session, an angry Saddam said he would boycott the next day’s proceedings after complaining he and his co-defendants had been mistreated.

Saddam’s threat not to attend the Wednesday session came at the end of a daylong session in which five witnesses — two women and three men — related the events of a 1982 crackdown on Shiite Muslims. The most dramatic testimony came from a woman who spoke from behind a curtain with her voice disguised.

She told of beatings, torture and sexual humiliation at the hands of security agents when she was a teenager.

At the end of Tuesday’s proceedings, the judges agreed over defense objections to meet again the following day. Saddam shouted: “I will not come to an unjust court! Go to hell!”

Saddam, dressed again in a dark suit and white shirt and clutching a Quran, complained that he and his seven co-defendants were tired and had been deprived of opportunities to shower, change clothes, exercise or smoke.

“This is terrorism,” he declared.

Throughout the trial, which began Oct. 19, Saddam has repeatedly confronted the court and attempted to take control of the proceedings with dramatic rhetorical flourishes.

Saddam and the others are charged in the deaths of more than 140 Shiite Muslims in retaliation for an assassination attempt against him in the town of Dujail in 1982. Saddam accused Iran of ordering the attempt on his life.

Five witnesses — two women and three men — testified Tuesday in the fourth session of the trial, all of them hidden from public view and with their voices disguised to protect their identities.

The most compelling testimony came from the woman identified only as “Witness A,” who was 16 years old at the time of the crackdown. Her voice breaking with emotion, she told the court of beatings and electric shocks by the former president’s agents.

“I was forced to take off my clothes, and he raised my legs up and tied my hands. He continued administering electric shocks and whipping me and telling me to speak,” she said of Wadah al-Sheik, an Iraqi intelligence officer who died of cancer last month while in American custody.

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