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Saddam Hussein's defence team has drafted a letter to US President George W. Bush warning of dire consequences if an Iraqi court issues a verdict against the ousted Iraqi president for crimes against humanity. In a copy of the letter received by AFP in Jordan on Sunday, lead Iraqi lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi also urged Bush to set free Saddam and put an end to the trial which he described again as illegal and a farce. "We believe that it is necessary to stop this farcical trial and set free President Saddam Hussein, and all the prisoners, because this is...

'Free Saddam or else...' 29/10/2006 17:19 - (SA) Amman - Saddam Hussein's defence team has drafted a letter to US President George W Bush warning of dire consequences if an Iraqi court issues a verdict against the ousted Iraqi president for crimes against humanity. In a copy of the letter received by AFP in Jordan on Sunday, lead Iraqi lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi also urged Bush to set free Saddam and put an end to the trial which he described again as illegal and a farce. "We believe that it is necessary to stop this farcical trial and set free President...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's prime minister says Saddam Hussein's execution would help undermine the insurgency as the ex-president's genocide trial heard more testimony Thursday of poison gas attacks on Kurdish villages two decades ago. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he hoped the trial, which began in August, would not last long and "shortly a death sentence will be passed against this criminal tyrant, his aides and the criminals who worked with him." "Definitely, with his execution, those betting on returning to power under the banner of Saddam and the Baath (Party) will lose," al-Maliki told reporters Wednesday in Najaf. Saddam...

Wire reports indicated Monday that a verdict in the trial of disposed Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein is expected on Nov. 5, two days before the congressional elections. That timing could significantly benefit GOP candidates, many of which are struggling to defend the war. After offering various rationales for the invasion of Iraq since 2003, President Bush recently said that the main reason for the war was to get rid of the Iraqi dictator. "Presidents don't get to look back, but I will tell you, the decision to remove Saddam was the right decision," Bush said last week at a White...

A judge trying Saddam Hussein for the killing of 148 Shi'ite villagers in the 1980s will set a date on Monday for a verdict in a case that carries the maximum penalty of death by hanging, court officials said. A year after the case opened in a U.S.-backed courtroom in Baghdad, chief judge Raouf Abdel Rahman will hold a closed session to review witness testimonies and evidence and announce a final date for a verdict for former Iraqi president Saddam and seven of his top lieutenants for crimes against humanity. "The judge needs to review procedural and administrative issues and...

Two leading Republican senators called Sunday for a new strategy in Iraq, saying the situation in getting worse and leaving the United States with few options. Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and John Warner of Virginia are part of the growing list of Republicans who are speaking out against President Bush's current plan for Iraq as U.S. casualties rise. "The American people are not going to continue to support, sustain a policy that puts American troops in the middle of a civil war," Hagel said on CNN's "Late Edition." Hagel said he agreed with Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed...

In an open letter, Saddam Hussein told Iraqis "victory was at hand" and urged insurgents to show magnanimity to opponents, saying he himself forgave Iraqis who aided the killers of his two sons. In the letter dictated to his chief lawyer Khalil Dulaimi during a four-hour meeting on Saturday in his prison, the former Iraqi leader also said Iraqis should put aside differences and set only one goal - to drive U.S. troops out of Iraq. "Victory is at hand but don't forget that your near-term goal is confined to liberating your country from the forces of occupation," Saddam said...

Saddam Hussein expelled of the court BAGHDAD - former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was expelled Tuesday morning of the court where it is shown of genocide against the Kurdish populations and the judge ordered that the debates continue in camera, according to journalists' on the spot. An argument burst with judge Mohammed Al-Oreibi Al-Khalifa when this last required to close the microphone of Saddam Hussein who wanted to read a verse of Coran. After having ordered the expulsion of the former president, the judge also expelled of the court another defendant, Hussein Rachid Al-Tikriti, former assistant commander of the...

Monday 09 October 2006 Saddam could face the death penalty if found guilty Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's genocide trial has resumed after a two-week adjournment. The trail resumed on Monday despite a boycott by Saddam's defence lawyers. The former presidnet and six of his officials are accused of ordering the 1988 Anfal campaign by Iraqi forces in which 182,000 Kurds were killed, prosecutors say. The court heard testimony from a Kurdish woman who accused Saddam Hussein of burying her family in a mass grave. She spoke from behind a curtain to protect her identity. She said Iraqi forces attacked...

BAGHDAD, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein was expelled from the courtroom for the second hearing in a row on Monday after the new chief judge dismissed his request to be allowed out of the metal pen where defendants must sit. "I have a request here that I don't want to be in this cage any more," he said, waving a yellow paper. "Get him out," the judge ordered court guards.

THE judge in Saddam Hussein's genocide trial said yesterday that he did not think the fallen Iraqi leader was a "dictator". Abdulla al-Amiri made his comments a day after prosecutors demanded his resignation, complaining that he was too soft on Saddam, who had threatened to "crush the heads" of his accusers. They also complained he let Saddam make long speeches in court. Questioning a Kurdish farmer who testified he had secured a face-to-face audience with Saddam in 1988 and begged him to spare the lives of his wife and seven children, the former president said: "If I'm a dictator, why...

KURDISTAN — In April, ousted dictator Saddam Hussein was charged with genocide and crimes against humanity for his role 1988’s Anfal campaign against Iraq’s Kurdish population. Now, as Iraqis wait for the trial to run its course, three local Kurdish citizens reflect on what they endured before and after the campaign that some say left 100,000 Kurds dead and another 182,000 missing. “In 1988, Iraqi military operations started Aug. 25, called ‘Operation Anfal’, translated Anfal means ‘Spoil of War’,” said Makail Bendi, an interpreter with the 403rd Civil Affairs Battalion in Dahuk. Bendi fled Iraq with the start of the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A former Kurdish rebel testified Monday he temporarily lost his sight in a chemical weapons attack by Saddam Hussein's forces nearly two decades ago. He removed his glasses so the court could see his swollen eyes. Karawan Abdellah said he still lives in "pain and suffering" from the March 1988 attack, when Iraqi warplanes raided Kurdish guerrilla positions in the village of Shanakhesiya in northern Iraq. After the initial airstrike, Iraq fired chemical weapons on the village, Abdellah said. "I stayed in a hospital for six months and during this period I wasn't able to see at...

Judge castigates sleeping lawyer in Saddam’s trial (Reuters) 19 September 2006 BAGHDAD - The chief judge in Saddam Hussein’s genocide trial castigated a defence lawyer for falling asleep during Tuesday’s proceedings, as a witness was recounting a gas attack. Banging his hammer, an angry Abdullah Al Amiri brusquely interrupted an ethnic Kurd recounting a gas attack in his village in northern Iraq in 1988 to berate one of the lawyers for Saddam and his six other co-accused. ‘It appears you’re falling asleep!’ the judge said. ‘Who me? No, no. I’m just tired like everyone else here. I wasn’t asleep. I...

Iraq's Shiite-led Cabinet has removed the chief judge in the genocide trial of Saddam Hussein, accusing him of being biased towards the defendant. Judge Abdullah al-Ameri has come under fire for making a statement that Saddam was not a "dictator" during a friendly exchange with the accused at a hearing on September 14. "I can confirm he has been removed," Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. "The Government of Iraq feels the judge is no longer neutral as could be seen when he described Saddam Hussein as not being a 'dictator'," Mr Dabbagh said. Mr Dabbagh says that the decision to...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Saddam Hussein's lawyers walked out of his trial Wednesday to protest the replacement of the chief judge, who had been accused of favoring the defense. The deposed leader also protested and was ordered to leave the courtroom.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein's lawyers walked out of his trial Wednesday to protest the replacement of the chief judge, who had been accused of favoring the defense. The deposed leader also protested and was ordered to leave the courtroom. Defense lawyers questioned the impartiality of the trial when the session began under Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa in place of Abdullah al-Amiri, who was removed after he was accused of being too soft on the former Iraqi leader. Al-Amiri told Saddam last week in court that "you were not a dictator," and an aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said...

Iraqi Official Testifies to Links Between Saddam and Al Qaeda BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun September 14, 2006 WASHINGTON — A deputy prime minister of Iraq yesterday offered a sharp contradiction of the conventional wisdom here that Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Al Qaeda had no connection before the 2003 war, flatly contradicting a recent report from the Senate's intelligence committee. In a speech in which he challenged the belief of war critics that Iraqis' lives are now worse than under Saddam Hussein, Barham Salih said, "The alliance between the Baathists and jihadists which sustains Al Qaeda...

Begun again lawsuit of Saddam, the prosecutor claims the resignation of the judge BAGHDAD - the lawsuit of deposed president Saddam Hussein, judged for genocide against the Kurds, took again Wednesday in front of the high Iraqi penal court in Baghdad, where the Attorney General asked for the resignation of the marked judge of laxism with regard to the Iraqi ex-dictator. Saddam Hussein and its six co-defendants were present in the room of the court, including Ali Hassan Al-Majid, called Ali the chemical one for his role in the chemical bombardments of civil zones. During five last audiences of...

A former female Kurdish guerrilla told the court trying ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on charges of genocide today how she witnessed first-hand the horror of gas attacks against her people in the late 1980s. Saddam and six co-defendants were back in the dock after a three-week recess in their trial over the brutal 1987-88 Anfal campaign against Kurds in northern Iraq which prosecutors say left 182,000 people dead. Katherine Elias Mikhail, once a peshmerga Kurdish guerrilla, described how she was present when first her unit and then a year later her village were gassed by Saddam's air force. "I...