Saddam accuses Interior Ministry of killings

BAGHDAD - Ousted dictator Saddam Hussein has accused the new Shi'ite-run Interior Ministry of killing and torturing thousands of Iraqis in his latest outburst in court.

Sunni Arabs, who were dominant during Saddam's rule, accuse the Ministry of running death squads and Saddam said it was now the "side that kills thousands in the street and tortures them".

The trial was adjourned later until Thursday.

Saddam, who could face death by hanging, remained defiant one day after the court announced he would face new charges of genocide against the ethnic Kurds in the late 1980s.

When the judge interrupted him, Saddam said: "If you're scared of the Interior Minister, he doesn't scare my dog."

Saddam may be in the dock again for another trial as early as next month, potentially leading to a drawn-out, complex legal process in a country where most people want closure on a bloody past and a future free of sectarian bloodshed.

Iraqi politicians and court officials are already sending mixed signals on whether he would be executed if found guilty in one trial, or be tried on new charges in another first.

And the latest outbursts suggested chances of accelerating proceedings were slim.

Chief judge Raouf Abdel Rahman and one of Saddam's lawyers, Bushra Khalil, had several heated exchanges which resulted in her being thrown out of court.

Guards escorted her out after she held up what appeared to be a picture of a pile of prisoners at the US-run Abu Ghraib prison, scene of a prisoner abuse scandal in 2004.

"This is what the Americans did to Iraqis in Abu Ghraib," said the Lebanese lawyer who was told to stop screaming.

Saddam, whose word was law in Iraq for decades, seemed unfazed by it all, sitting in the dock and telling the judge: "There was no need for you to do that."

Saddam, who still calls himself the president of Iraq, also challenged chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi, a member of the Shi'ite Muslim community Saddam is accused of torturing and putting in mass graves.

Whale in the net

"If you want to put the whale into the net, which I don't think you do, you have to tell the truth," he told Moussawi.

"Don't be upset with me. I am older than you and I have a higher rank and better history and yet I am not upset with you."

Moussawi held up the plastic-coated identification cards of Iraqi teenage boys he said were executed under Saddam's orders; names like Mahdi Hussein, 14, and Fouad al-Aswady, 15.

Saddam refused to sign documents, saying that only an international court would be fair, and denounced the Interior Ministry as he faced cross examination for the first time.

Interior Minister Bayan Jabor is a hate figure among Sunnis, who accuse him of waging a sectarian war against them and allowing Shi'ite militias to run hit squads with impunity. He denies the accusations.

Saddam was the only defendant in the chamber, which he has dominated with tirades questioning the court's legitimacy and urging Iraqis to rise up against US occupation troops.

He and seven co-accused are charged with killing 148 Shi'ite men and teenagers after an attempt on his life in the town of Dujail in 1982.

Prosecutors hoped the Dujail case would produce a swift sentence because the charges are less complicated than others such as genocide. But the trial has faced many setbacks, including the chief judge's resignation and killing of two defence lawyers.

The special tribunal trying Saddam said on Tuesday that he would face charges of genocide against the Kurds, who accuse him of killing more than 100,000 people and destroying thousands of their villages in the late 1980s in the Anfal campaign.

Saddam engaged in verbal sparring with the judge, whose impartiality has been questioned because he is a Kurd from the village of Halabja, where Saddam's forces were accused of killing 5000 people in a poison gas attack in 1988.

- REUTERS