Kurds recount gas attack horror at Saddam trial

Saddam faces execution
Saddam and his six co-defendants could face execution by hanging if convicted in the Anfal case. Saddam and his cousin, al-Majid, a Baath Party leader who allegedly organized Anfal, are charged with genocide — considered the toughest charge to prove since its requires showing their intention was to exterminate part of an ethnic group.

Saddam and al-Majid — who became known as "Chemical Ali" for the use of chemical weapons in Anfal — also face charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, as do their co-defendants, most of whom are former military figures.

Saddam is still waiting a verdict on Oct. 16 in the first case against him — the 9-month-long trial over the killings of 148 Shiites in a 1980s crackdown on the town of Dujail. In that case as well, he and seven other co-defendants could face the death penalty.

The Anfal trial is likely to take months as well. The campaign was on a far greater scale than the Dujail crackdown, with anywhere from 50,000 to 180,000 Kurds killed. Prosecutors plan to bring up to 75 witnesses and extensive documents from the former regime, as well as evidence from mass graves.

So far, however, the three-day-old trial has seen none of the shouting and disruptions that plagued the Dujail trial and caused extensive delays. In the Dujail case, the tough chief judge Raouf Abdul-Rahman frequently shouted down Saddam and his top co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim and threw out several defendants or lawyers for causing disturbances.

Instead, the tone in the Anfal case has been civil and businesslike. At one point, when al-Majid stood to make a point about military service, chief judge al-Amiri complimented him, saying, "I'm sure you know better, you were in the know," and al-Majid thanked him.

Al-Amiri also told the 64-year-old al-Majid, who has looked haggard in his court appearances and uses a cane, that he could remain seated while addressing the court, bringing another round of pleasantries between the men.

It was a stark contrast to Ibrahim, who had furious arguments with Abdul-Rahman during the Dujail trial and in several sessions showed up in court wearing only long-underwear to show his disdain for the tribunal.

Eight-stage campaign
Al-Majid stood an objected Bayez's use of the term "anfalized" — a term coined by Kurds and used by all three of the survivors so far to refer to those who disappeared and were killed in the Anfal campaign.

Al-Majid said the Balisan and Sheik Wasan operations took place before the Anfal campaign officially began — in early 1988. Al-Amiri replied that the trial was also addressing some military activities that took place in the months leading up to Anfal.

The campaign code-named "Anfal" by Saddam's military took place in eight stages, starting in February 1988, with each stage hitting a different part of mainly Kurdish northern Iraq. But it was preceded by a number of similar military operations in 1987 also under the command of al-Majid, according to a Human Rights Watch report on Anfal.

Two co-defendants in the trial on Tuesday denied that Anfal targeted civilians, saying it was launched solely to uproot Kurdish guerrillas they said were helping Iranian forces during the bloody Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

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