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.
Why not the home state of Kerry/Kennedy?
Saddam: "Good morning. I have a question. Where is Johnny Cochran? I'd like to try on a pair of gloves."
Sure. The gunpowder-assisted acceleration of metallic lead to over 2000 fps substantially enhances its ability to penetrate biological membranes, effectively making it quite toxic.
;-)
He committed suicide before we could hang him.
I was thinking maybe Texas, not Oregon as a venue for his trial.
Thanks. Someone already reminded me but thanks anyway.
Robert Ley, the head of the German Labor Front, hanged himself in his cell at Nuremberg.
http://www.shoah.dk/Henchmen/jpg_rley.htm
Also, Himmler poisoned himself after he was captured by the British.
http://www.shoah.dk/Henchmen/jpg_hhimmler.htm
ROTFLMAO. But probably true.
Is there any word on whether the Thursday hearing will be televised.
In any case, I'm betting that the Major Media will do their very best to avoid bringing any of this to the attention of the American (voting) public.
I think Saddam will be President of Iraq on January 1, 2005.
We should have killed him when we had the chance. Trials and civil proceedings are possible in this world only after the Saddam Husseins are dead.
To Paris
Well I hope Saddam doesn't commit suicide. I want him executed in some heinous manner.
I was hoping for the Full Mussolini.
Oh my goodness..
you don't suppose he WASN'T mirandised.
To paraphrase Judge Roy Bean, "We will have a fair and honest trail, then a right nice hanging."
I figured that the well known (i.e. the place our current President received his MBA) in Cambridge covered that option.
And Rommel was the only one of them who would possibly be found not guilty in a war crimes trial.
Yep
That was Goebbels.
Himmler tried to negotiate with the British, but after escaping to the west and while in British custody, he found there would be no negotiations. He then crunched a cyanide capsule he had smuggled in (in his mouth, as I recall, disguised as dental work).
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