Saddam in court: ‘I am responsible’

updated 2:08 p.m. ET March 1, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein said in a defiant courtroom confession Wednesday that he ordered the trial of 148 Shiites who were eventually executed in the 1980s, but he insisted he had the right to do so because they were suspected in an assassination attempt against him.

The deaths of the Shiites are one of the main charges against Saddam and his seven co-defendants, who could face execution by hanging — the same fate as most of the 148 — if convicted.

His dramatic speech Wednesday before the five-judge panel came a day after prosecutors in his trial presented the most direct evidence against him so far in the four-month trial: a 1984 presidential decree approving the death sentences for the 148, with a signature said to be Saddam’s.

Saddam did not admit or deny approving their executions, but stated outright that he was solely responsible for their prosecution, saying his co-defendants should be released.

“Where is the crime? Where is the crime?” Saddam asked. “If trying a suspect accused of shooting at a head of state — no matter what his name is — is considered a crime, then you have the head of state in your hands. Try him.”

“If the chief figure makes thing easy for you by saying he was the one responsible, then why are you going after these people?” he said.

The eight defendants are on trial for torture, imprisonment and execution of the 148 Shiites, as well as the razing of their farmlands, in a crackdown launched after a July 8, 1982 assassination attempt against Saddam in the town of Dujail.

Tougher climate, core issues
Saddam’s challenge came as the often turbulent trial had taken a new turn in the past two sessions — becoming more orderly under the tough chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman, who broke a defense team boycott and clamped down on outbursts, shouted insults and arguments by Saddam and other defendants.

The new orderliness could boost the credibility of the trial, which U.S. and Iraqi officials hope will bring acceptance of the results by Iraq’s sharply divided Shiites and Sunnis. But outside the courtroom, those divisions have only become bloodier. At least 94 people have been killed in the past two days in increased sectarian violence.

The trial was also beginning to tackle the core of the case against the defendants, as prosecutors presented a series of Saddam-era documents — memos, decrees and reports from Saddam’s office and the Mukhabarat intelligence agency — detailing the internal bureaucracy behind the crackdown.

The prosecution has argued that the imprisonments and executions were illegal, saying the 148 were sentenced to death in an “imaginary trial” before Saddam’s Revolutionary Court where the defendants did not even appear.

Documents show women, children arrested
The crackdown, they argue, went far beyond the actual attackers, presenting documents that show entire families were arrested, tortured and held for years, including women and children as young as 3 months old. Those executed included at least 10 juveniles, one as young as 11, according to the documents.

A U.S. diplomat familiar with the court said Saddam’s statement “was the most striking” since the trial began, adding that it can be used as evidence against him. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the trial.

Abdel-Rahman and the other judges will rule in the case after hearing the rest of the prosecution arguments, then the defense. It will be up to them to decide whether Saddam’s actions were illegal. After Wednesday’s session, the trial was adjourned to March 12.

On Wednesday, the prosecution played an audiotape of Saddam discussing the razing of the Dujail farms with a Baath Party official in the early 1990s and showed satellite photos of the flattened land.

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