Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein went on trial on Wednesday for the killing of nearly 150 Shiites in the town of Dujail in 1982, by pleading not guilty.
"I said what I said, I am not guilty, I am innocent," the former Iraqi dictator told the court after the charges were read out. The other seven defendants also declared they were "innocent". The first session of the trial lasted about three hours. The proceedings were aired with about a 20-minute delay on state-run Iraqi television and on satellite stations across Iraq and the Arab world.
The trial was adjourned early because vital witnesses were too scared to turn up, the trial judge said. The trial was adjourned until November 28 after the defendants entered their pleas.
Earlier, Saddam refused to identify himself when asked and questioned the five-man Special Tribunal's legitimacy. "You know me. You are an Iraqi and you know who I am," he said. "I won't answer to this so-called court. Who are you? What are you?" he asked the chief judge. "Neither do I recognize the body that has designated and authorized you, nor the aggression because all that has been built on false basis is false."
Beforehand, Saddam's defense attorney, Khalil Al Dulaimi's, announced that he would seek a three-month delay of the trial for what he viewed as illigitimacy of the court, established in 2003 under the occupation of US forces.
"His morale is very, very, very high and he is very optimistic and confident of his innocence," al-Dulaimi told reporters ahead of the trial. He went on: "We will dispute the legitimacy of the court as we've been doing every day. "We will claim it is unconstitutional and not competent to try the legitimate president of Iraq."
If convicted, Saddam, along with seven other men involved in the killings, face the death penalty by hanging. The others on trial include ex-vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan and Barzan Ibrahim al-Hassan, Saddam's half-brother and former head of the intelligence service.
In addition to the Dujail case to begin on Wednesday, Saddam faces other several other charges, including the killing of some 180,000 Kurds in the 1980s and the death of 5,000 Kurds in 1988 when Saddam ordered the town of Halabja attacked by poison gas.
The judge who presides over the trial of Saddam has been named on Wednesday. Rizgar Mohammed Amin was unveiled as the senior member of the five-man tribunal just before the hearing was due to start. Amin is a Kurd in his late 40s from the northern city of Sulaimaniya.
Reacting on Wednesday's events, the White House praised the trial as a key step in Iraq's transition to a "functioning democracy." "Saddam Hussein is facing Iraqi justice," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "The trial is a symbol that the rule of law is returning to Iraq. We hope this trial will help bring some closure for the Iraqi people to their country's dark past."
© 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
