Saddam Hussein insisted Thursday he had been beaten by his US captors, denouncing Washington's denials as "lies." The former Iraqi president voiced his claims of abuse during a time when he was allowed to cross-examine witnesses.
According to the AP, he claimed that the wounds he suffered from the beatings had been documented by at least two American teams.
He added that American denials couldn't be believed, noting that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq despite pre-war claims by U.S. officials that Saddam was holding such weapons. "We don't lie. It is the White House that lies," Saddam told the court.
Reacting to the former Iraqi president's complaints, Raid al-Juhi the investigating judge said officials never saw evidence verifying Saddam's claims he was beaten.
Meanwhile, the first witness to testify Thursday spoke from behind a curtain and had his voice disguised. According to him he was 8 during the killings in Dujail back in 1982. He said his grandmother, father and uncles had been arrested and tortured, and he never saw his male relatives again, implying they had been executed.
Saddam said the court should not depend on the testimony of witnesses who were children at the time of the alleged crime, and one of his defense attorneys got the witness to admit he had not been arrested and did not see any dead bodies.
The trial will be resumed on January 24, 2006.
