Saddam Hussein, lawyers stay away from trial

BAGHDAD - Saddam Hussein boycotted his trial for a second day today and his defence team also stayed away, saying the new chief judge wanted only to see the former Iraqi leader quickly hanged.

The chairs normally occupied by Saddam and his seven co-defendants were empty as Chief Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman heard two prosecution witnesses recount their torture by Saddam's security forces after a failed bid to assassinate him in the Shi'ite town of Dujail in 1982.

"We are not ready to be participants in a farcical trial without any legal basis that has already decided to convict President Saddam and execute him," Saddam's chief counsel, Khalil al-Dulaimi, told Reuters in the Jordanian capital Amman.

Dulaimi accuses Abdel Rahman of bias and has demanded his removal.

He said today he also wanted the chief prosecutor and a second prosecutor to be withdrawn from the US-sponsored court, saying they, too, were biased against his client.

Abdel Rahman is from the Kurdish town of Halabja, where 5000 people, including some of his relatives, were gassed during an offensive by Saddam's security forces in 1988.

He was appointed as chief judge after his predecessor, Rizgar Amin, also a Kurd, stepped down, amid accusations he had been too lenient on Saddam, whose tirades have dominated proceedings since they got under way on Oct. 19.

Within minutes of the trial resuming on Sunday, Abdel Rahman quickly stamped his authority on his first session as presiding judge. He had guards forcibly eject a defendant, Saddam's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, and a member of the defence team after they refused to keep quiet.

Furious defence lawyers then stormed out and have not returned. Saddam also left after verbally sparring with the judge.

He boycotted the following day's proceedings, together with his former vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, Barzan, and the head of his Revolutionary Court, Awad al-Bander.

"Because of the insistence of Saddam Hussein, Barzan al-Tikriti, Taha Yassin Ramadan and Awad al-Bander not to attend, the court has decided not to call them for this session and to review their opposition," Abdel Rahman said.

"The rest were present but were causing chaos," he added, explaining a decision to exclude the remaining three defendants, former low-ranking members of Saddam's Baath party.

Saddam and his co-defendants face hanging if convicted of crimes against humanity in the killing of 148 men from Dujail.

A Western diplomat close to the court said Saddam and his defendants had followed Thursday's proceedings on television "with great interest". Saddam had met his court-appointed lawyer for 45 minutes, the diplomat added.

Abdel Rahman appointed lawyers to take over the defence of Saddam and his fellow accused on Sunday after their defence team refused to attend future sessions. Saddam has said he does not want court-appointed lawyers to represent him.

"The defence team has reached a dead end with the court and it is no longer possible for us to work with people who are unwilling to listen to us," chief counsel Dulaimi said.

The boycott is only the latest dramatic turn in a trial already marred by delays, the murder of two defence lawyers, the resignation of Amin, and the removal of his first replacement after he was accused of belonging to the Baath party.

Some human rights groups have criticised the former US occupation authorities' decision to try Saddam in Iraq rather than an international court, saying the sectarian and ethnic strife engulfing the country makes a fair trial difficult to achieve.

The first witness to testify today said he was 13 years old when Saddam's security forces entered Dujail the day after the assassination attempt and detained him, his father, mother and three sisters.

"I was tortured with electricity; they took off my sister's clothes before my eyes and tortured her," he told the court, speaking with his voice electronically distorted from behind a curtain to hide his identity.

A second witness said he had been tortured by Barzan, Saddam's former head of intelligence: "Barzan entered the torture room and asked a guard to light him a cigarette. He extinguished it on my head while guards beat me."

Abdel Rahman adjourned the trial until Feb 13 to give the prosecution more time to gather more witnesses.

- REUTERS