Iraqi tribunal quizzes Saddam on 1982 massacre
Monday, June 13, 2005 Posted: 11:00 AM EDT (1500 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) -- An Iraqi judge has questioned Saddam Hussein about the killings of dozens of men from a Shi'ite village where he survived an assassination attempt in 1982, the Iraqi special tribunal said on Monday.
It also released film of Saddam and other members of his administration being questioned by presiding judge Raad Jouhi, which a spokesman said had taken place on Sunday.
The killings at Dujail are a relatively minor incident among the crimes of which the former president is accused but there has been speculation that they might be used as a test case in an early trial.
Iraqi government officials have said they would like to put Saddam on trial in the next few months, before an election, although tribunal officials have said the timetable is not set.
A spokesman for the elected government, dominated by Shi'ites and Kurds, said this month that it was interested in a swift trial and death sentence for Saddam, and that therefore it was not necessary to prepare cases on all the many charges of genocide and crimes against humanity he faces.
There has been speculation that prosecutors may find it easier to produce evidence of direct personal involvement by Saddam in the killings at Dujail than in some of the more prominent accusations.
One source in the Iraqi government has told Reuters that two of five people currently charged in connection with Dujail -- Saddam's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan -- were ready to testify that Saddam had personally ordered the killings.
The prosecution will allege that over 100 executions were carried out in reprisal for an attempt to assassinate Saddam as his motorcade passed through the village, north of Baghdad, in July 1982. The village's date groves were destroyed and hundreds of residents were interned in the south of the country.
The tribunal also released a list of four other people, including Barzan Abdel Ghafoor, commander of the Special Republican Guard and a cousin of Saddam, and Muzahim Saab al- Hassan, a former air defense commander, who were questioned about the 1988 Anfal campaign against the Kurds, during which poison gas killed 5,000 civilians at Halabja. |
