Procedural wrangling yesterday again delayed the resumption of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's trial, amid increasing enmity between the no-nonsense new judge and an indignant defense team.
Judge Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman made his mark in the first session of the trial under his control on Sunday, forcing the former Iraqi president out of the court and ordering guards to eject his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti.
Neither a clearly irate Saddam, his defense team, nor any of the high profile defendants were expected to attend yesterday's hearing amid continued questioning of the credibility of the tribunal.
But the opening of the trial was delayed to allow time to sort out procedural issues, with the judge declaring that the first session would in any case take place behind closed doors.
Saddam lawyer Khalil Dulaimi, in a statement published hours before the trial was due to resume, laid out 11 conditions for the defense team to end their boycott.
Among those demands, were the sacking of the judge and the switching of the trial "to a country which can offer security."
The defense team declared that judge Abdel Rahman "be removed and cease to have anything to do with the accused because he shows them great hostility."
The trial had turned into a virtual battle between the defendants, their lawyers and Abdel Rahman, with the former demanding sacking of the judge and also relocation of the court out of Iraq, while the judge wants an apology.
Saddam walked out, followed by two other high-profile defendants, former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan and the head of the revolutionary court, Awad Bandar.
The defense said the judge had contacted the defense team and asked them for an apology following which he would allow them to re-enter the court.
The judge also reportedly suggested a meeting with the defense team under the auspices of the Iraqi bar association to formalize procedural issues for future hearings.
The trial has already come under attack from human-rights activists who have cast doubts over its fairness after the previous presiding judge Rizkar Mohammed Amin quit last month.
Several members of parliament and government officials had publicly criticized Amin for what they viewed as lenient treatment of Saddam and his seven co-defendants, on trial for the killing of 148 inhabitants of the Shiite village of Dujail in 1982.
If proved guilty the accused face execution.
"The demand for presiding judge Rizkar Amin's dismissal, which contributed to his resignation, was nothing less than an attack on judicial independence," said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch, in a statement last week.
Also the appointment of Abdel Rahman, a magistrate from outside the chamber, is believed to have irked other judges.
Abdel Rahman, 64, is the vice president of the criminal court in the northern town of Arbil and helped found the human-rights organization of the Kurdish autonomous region in 1991.
He was twice arrested by the Iraqi government and at one point was tortured so badly he was partly paralyzed.
Abdel Rahman was born in Halabja, the Kurdish town bombed by Saddam's forces with chemical weapons in 1988 -- another of the events for which Saddam could be tried later.
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