Witness at Saddam trial tells of abuse
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-06 21:04

In Monday's session, a defiant Saddam sought to take control of the proceedings through boisterous outbursts, declaring at one point that "I am not afraid of execution" and denouncing the trial run according to "American rules."

Despite the sometimes free-for-all atmosphere Monday, the trial's first witnesses offered chilling accounts of killings and torture using electric shocks and a grinder during a 1982 crackdown against Shiites.

Ahmed Hassan Mohammed said he saw a machine that "looked like a grinder" with hair and blood on it in a secret police center in Baghdad where he and others were tortured for 70 days. He said detainees were kept in "Hall 63."

Mohammed recalled how security agents rounded up townspeople of all ages, from 14 to more than 70.

"There were mass arrests. Women and men. Even if a child was 1-day-old, they used to tell his parents, 'Bring him with you,'" Mohammed said.

The testimony drew an angry response from Saddam, who suggested that Mohammed needed psychiatric treatment and accused the court of bowing to American pressure.

"When the revolution of the heroic Iraq arrives, you will be held accountable," Saddam warned the chief judge.

"This is an insult to the court," Amin responded. "We are searching for the truth."

"How can a judge like yourself accept a situation like this?" Saddam asked. "This game must not continue. If you want Saddam Hussein's neck, you can have it. I have exercised my constitutional prerogatives after I had been the target of an armed attack.

When Mohammed objected to some of Saddam's remarks, the former president snapped: "Do not interrupt me, son."