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Saddam pleads not guilty, trial adjourned on request

Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, at front left, and his co-defendants attend their trial under tight security in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone yesterday. PHOTO: AP

A defiant Saddam Hussein pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges of crimes against humanity, refusing to recognize the court on the first day of a trial that could see him sentenced to death.

The trial was adjourned to Nov. 28.

The decision was made by Kurdish judge Rizkar Mohammed Amin following a request by Saddam's Iraqi lawyer for a three-month delay.

Facing the first of what could be several cases over atrocities committed during his quarter-century in power, Saddam entered the Baghdad courtroom carrying a copy of the Koran and wearing a dark suit and open-necked shirt.

"I said what I said, I am not guilty, I am innocent," Saddam told the court after charges that included torture, murder and forced imprisonment were read out.

A bearded Saddam, who was not handcuffed, described himself as the "president of Iraq" according to footage broadcast from the courtroom with a delay of about 30 minutes, but refused to give his name.

"I don't acknowledge either the entity that authorizes you nor the aggression because everything based on falsehood is falsehood," Saddam said from the waist-high metal cage he was sitting in.

The presiding judge, looking increasingly exasperated, said: "For the record, the witness refuses to give his name."

Security was tight at the grey marble courtroom in the heart of Baghdad's highly-fortified Green Zone, where Saddam and seven of his former henchmen face trial for the murder of 143 Shiite villagers from Dujail, north of the capital.

The panel of five judges, sitting in front of large gold-colored scales of justice, could sentence them to death penalty if convicted.

"You are charged with murder, forced expulsion, imprisonment, failure to comply with international law and torture," Amin told the eight, all of whom pleaded not guilty.

"These defendants have personal responsibility in the case," he said, adding that according to the legal code, the charges carry the death penalty.

The defendants include Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother and a former director of the feared Mukhabarat intelligence service, and former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan, one of his feared officials.

The eight were sitting in steel-barred waist-high pens equipped with microphones, some wearing traditional chequered headdresses.

Several followed Saddam's lead and refused to give their names.

"Trial of the Century" trumpeted the headline in Al-Bayan, the mouthpiece of the Shiite Dawa party of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari. "Iraqis will finally see their former dictator at the mercy of Iraqi justice."

Two mortar bombs landed in the Green Zone shortly before the trial, without causing any casualties, following calls by Saddam's supporters for attacks.

Ramadan also defied the court, telling the judge only: "I repeat what president Saddam Hussein said."

Ramadan was vice president under Saddam from 1991 and one of his regime's feared "enforcers."

also see story:
Saddam Hussein before the law

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