Joy and fury as Iraqis watch Saddam trial

DUJAIL, Iraq - Some Iraqis watched with relief as Saddam Hussein's trial began last night (NZT), bringing to account the man who brutalised them for three decades.

Others, particularly among the Sunni minority, angrily dismissed the trial as a US-manipulated kangaroo court, declaring they did not recognise the case against a man who still proudly styles himself "the president of Iraq".

Saddam's trial was broadcast with a tape delay on major television stations in Iraq, giving Iraqis a first-hand glimpse of their former dictator brought low in a Baghdad courtroom, where he faced charges of crimes against humanity.

For many Iraqis, justice was sweet -- if long in coming.

"The beautiful thing is that the trial is live," said 25-year-old Hamid Hussein, watching in an electronics store in the southern Shi'ite city of Najaf. "It comes just in time ... now we start trying the criminals."

Emotions ran higher among others, reliving their own tragedies brooding over their own anger.

"I wish that I could judge Saddam with my own hands," swore Krav Nahid, who said his father was executed in 1991 when Saddam's forces crushed a rebellion in Najaf following the Gulf War. "What I want is revenge."

The charges Saddam was facing stem from events in Dujail, a Shi'ite farming village about 60 km north of Baghdad, where local young men linked to the Shi'ite Dawa party, tried to kill the Iraqi ruler in 1982 as his convoy passed through town.

Prosecutors say Saddam ordered reprisals, telling his men to hunt down, torture and kill more than 140 men from Dujail.

Families and friends of those killed said on Wednesday they hoped the trial would lead to swift conviction and execution.

"This is the end of every tyrant," said Laith Abd Mahdi, a middle-aged Dujail man outside his small house.

"He hurt us, hurt my relatives and hurt my closest friends. Death is not enough for him."

Others saw the trial as little more than a legal coda to the US-led overthrow of Saddam in 2003.

"I don't care about the trial," said Abu Hamed, a bearded local man, with a small grimace. "Saddam Hussein was convicted when his statue was toppled and we saw it on TV."

- REUTERS