Saddam-era judge stands by death sentences on 148 Shi'ites

BAGHDAD - A judge who served under Saddam Hussein admitted sentencing 148 men to death in the 1980s but said in court today all had confessed to joining an Iranian plot to kill Saddam and their trials had been fair.

"They attacked the president of the republic and they confessed," Awad Hamed al-Bandar, who headed Iraq's Revolutionary Court under Saddam, told the Baghdad court.

He, Saddam and six others are on trial for crimes against humanity for their alleged role in the killings of 148 Shi'ites from Dujail after an attempt on Saddam's life there in 1982.

During his last appearance on March 1, Saddam admitted he had ordered the trials under Bandar but justified the sentences as entirely legal, saying: "Where is the crime?"

Bandar accused the dead men of being part of a plot by the Iranian-backed Shi'ite Dawa party, now in the Iraqi government, to kill Saddam during Iraq's war with Iran: "It was provoked by Iran. They were members of Dawa," he said.

"The target was the head of state and we were in a state of war with Iran," Bandar said. "The court took two weeks. The 148 men had confessed. It is all in the files."

Prosecutors said the men were subjected to show trials and produced papers they said proved 46 had been tortured to death before the hearings. Bandar said all men were alive before being convicted.

Former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan dismissed the US-backed court as a tool of American occupation. In testimony broadcast across the Arab world, he accused US forces of torturing him in custody.

The chief judge said the court would consider a proposal by the chief prosecutor that Ramadan's complaint be investigated.

Saddam, who was not in court pending his own testimony, expected to come on Wednesday after a day-long adjournment, made a similar torture charge earlier in the trial, without result.

Ramadan, for decades a hardline member of Saddam's inner circle who is accused of other major crimes, denied being at Dujail after the attempt on the president's life.

Twenty-one years later, in August 2003, Ramadan was captured by Kurds in the northern city of Mosul and flown to Baghdad where, he said, he was tortured by Americans.

"They kicked me and beat me with sticks, asking 'Where is Saddam'?" Ramadan said. "I started bleeding on the floor. I felt I was going to faint and stop breathing.

"I asked God's help in this torture," he said, adding he was deprived of water, kept standing and hooded for long periods.

He said he did not reveal his leader's hiding place. Saddam was seized four months later.

Since Sunday, four Dujail Baath Party officials have appeared in court - three of them contesting sworn statements that the prosecution said they had made in pre-trial proceedings.

One of them, Mohammed Azawi Ali al-Marsoumi, told the judge on Monday he could not read or write, and denied as "lies" ever stating that he saw Saddam's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Ramadan in Dujail when alleged plotters were being hunted.

A court source said Saddam and Barzan, set to appear on Wednesday, followed proceedings on television in the courthouse.

- REUTERS