Posted on 06/30/2004 4:46:00 AM PDT by kattracks
BAGHDAD, June 30 (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein, who brutalised Iraqis for decades, said good morning and sought to ask some questions when the United States handed him over to Iraqi justice on Wednesday, a witness said.Saddam, who was captured hiding near his hometown of Tikrit in December, looked in good health as he appeared before an Iraqi judge in the first legal step towards a trial for the cruelties he inflicted during his 35 years of power.
"Saddam said good morning and asked if he could ask some questions," Salem Chalabi, a lawyer leading the work of a tribunal that will try the former dictator, told Reuters.
"He was told he should wait until tomorrow," said Chalabi, who was in the courtroom where Saddam and 11 of his former lieutenants were turned over to Iraqi legal custody.
But many of the other former Iraqi officials were nervous and agitated, said Chalabi, who has received numerous death threats since taking on the task of helping amass evidence against Saddam and preparing a special tribunal to try him.
Saddam, 67, is accused by Iraqis of torturing and killing hundreds of thousands of people with the help of officials in his Baath party. Saddam became president in 1979, but had already been Iraq's strongman since a Baathist coup in 1968.
His former lieutenants appeared nervous and some were hostile as they were told they would be charged on Thursday.
Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for his role in poison gas attacks, including one that killed about 5,000 Iraqi Kurds in Halabja in 1988, appeared especially rattled.
"He looked very scared. He was shaking," said Chalabi.
Saddam will remain in the physical custody of U.S. forces. He and the 11 others are to be charged on Thursday.
Saddam fled when U.S. forces entered Baghdad on April 9 last year after making a final defiant public appearance near a mosque in the capital. He was then filmed, looking disoriented, unkempt and with a bushy beard, as U.S. military doctors examined him after his capture on December 13.
Among others to be handed over were former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz; Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother and adviser; Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, his secretary; Sabawi Ibrahim, Saddam's maternal half-brother; Watban Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother and adviser; and Aziz Salih Numan, Baath Party regional commander and head of the party militia.
These men and others among the 55 most wanted Iraqis on a U.S. list are seen as witnesses who could help prove a chain of command linking Saddam to crimes against humanity.
Saddam will be charged with ordering the 1988 massacres of Kurds, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, according to Chalabi.
ROTFLOL!
? 1: Am I still President for Life
? 2: Why wasn't I read my Miranda rights?
? 3: Why can't I call Chiraq?
I stand corrected. I thought for sure Rommel was in on it.
Maybe Goebbels, the guy from Berlin. He would have been Reichsfuerer if Hitler hadn't come along. Himmler was assasinated by partisans.
No, that was Heydrich. Killed by British trained Czechs. In reprisal, the Nazis killed all the men of Lidice.
Terminal rope burn.
Right, Heydrich was probably the worst of the bunch, and that's going some.
Don't recall that scene but I expect I could readily accept such a treatment.
Ain't henchmen great?
THX.
Ali's trial should be quick - about 10 minutes to review the photos of the dead - followed by his hanging. I think the new government needs to set the tone early, to get a quick shot of public enthusiam for the interim government.
Hey man, the Home Depot is my toy store. :-)
and here I thought Tareq Aziz was on CNN's staff.
*chuckle*
It was the head rolling down the stairs scene.
And yes, I'd appreciate Sadman getting that kind of treatment as well.
Maybe so, but in my opinion it doesn't matter whether he up and dies or is executed, because the important thing is that there will be a trial, and hopefully it will get the kind of coverage that the Scot Peterson trial is gettiing. There will be nothing better for America than to see the Trial of the (21st) Century on the cable news channels. I think it would get the other side of the whole Iraq war issue that we don't see at all right now. When people see the kind of ruler he was, opinions will change. Most opinions are, I believe, emotional responses, and not always based in logic.
Yeah, sure!
In good ol' liberal Oregon, he would get the sentence of having the jury wring their hands furiously at him for up to 15 minutes before they turned him loose!
Rommel was praised by no lower statesman than Churchill, as well as by many other military and political men of that time.
There is no doubt in my mind that he would have been found to have acted honorably in command were he to have been put on trial after the war.
.
And acts too much like Home Depot...no one can screw up a large tile order like them...dealing with their "Special Services" Department is sheer torture!!!!
I don't think Iraq has juries.
The system is more European - a panel of judges I think.
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