Prosecutors: Saddam approved executions
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-01 09:54

The defense team's participation appeared to vindicate the tough approach Abdel-Rahman has taken since taking over the tribunal in late January, replacing a chief judge who had been criticized for allowing Saddam's outbursts. In contrast, Abdel-Rahman has thrown out defendants for shouting and has pushed ahead with the proceedings even when the lawyers — and, at times, the defendants themselves — refused to attend.

One member of the defense team, Salih al-Armouti, dismissed the documents presented in court Tuesday.

"I am not casting doubt on them as much as I'm saying that I consider them to be void and useless. They cannot be proof of any action that puts legal responsibility on my client," he told Al-Arabiya television, though he would not elaborate.

In the first months of the trial, a series of Dujail residents testified that they were imprisoned and tortured following the assassination attempt and that their relatives were killed. Several women related how they were stripped naked, beaten or given electric shocks — one testifying that Ibrahim himself kicked her in the chest as she hung upside down.

But none could directly implicate Saddam in the crackdown. In the past three sessions, prosecutors have been presenting documents aimed at showing the former Iraqi leader was directly involved.

On Tuesday, chief prosecutor al-Moussawi displayed a series of documents detailing the executions, though the numbers and chronology were often confusing.

One of the documents was a June 14, 1984 ruling by the Revolutionary Court sentencing to death 148 people from Dujail. A presidential decree issued two days later approved the death sentences, with a signature that prosecutors said was Saddam's.

The sentences were passed after an "imaginary trial," al-Moussawi told the court.

"None of the defendants were brought to court. Their statements were never recorded," he said.

Prosecutors also displayed a March 1985 document listing the names and ordering the executions to be carried out, signed allegedly by Ibrahim. A March 23, 1985 Revolutionary Court document confirmed the executions took place that day.

As it turned out, not all 148 had gone to the gallows. It was discovered that two people on the list were released by mistake, and the Mukhabarat intelligence agency launched an investigation in 1987 to find out what happened.

According to a report by the investigation, those implementing the execution order in 1984 discovered that some of those on the list had already been "liquidated during interrogations." The remaining 96 were executed as ordered.

But because of the "shortness of time," officials did not read the names on the list carefully, and four detainees who were not on the list and previously had been ordered released were executed by mistake, according to the document. They were identified as a man named Mahdi Adel-Amir, two of his sons and his brother.

The report recommended that a Mukhabarat officer who accidentally failed to release the Abdel-Amirs be disciplined with a prison sentence. A handwritten note that the prosecution said was Saddam's signature approved the recommendation. A later document said he was sentenced to three years in prison.

The report also recommended that a decree be issued to declare the Abdel-Amirs "martyrs" and return to their families properties that were stripped from relatives of the Dujail suspects. A note by Saddam's secretary said Saddam approved that recommendation as well.

A later Mukhabarat document showed that 10 juveniles thought to have been among the 96 executed — aged 11 to 17 at the time of sentencing — had instead been sent to a desert prison outside the southern city of Samawah.

The memo recommended executing the 10 in secret. A handwritten note in the margin of the memo, signed with what the prosecution said was Ibrahim's signature, approved the secret execution and recommended that Mukhabarat agents bury the bodies "so that the (Baghdad) municipality not find out."

"If we can guarantee this is carried out properly, then there is no objection," the note said. They were executed in 1989, other documents showed.