Every time I read about another of Saddam's atrocities, I want to go find Cindy Sheehan, John Murtha, Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon and the whole Code Pink crowd and just thottle them one by one. Anyone, and I mean absolutely anyone, who thinks that Iraq would be better today if Saddam were still in power is nuts bordering on psychopathic.
Prison guards under Saddam buried detainees alive
Female prisoner testifies at genocide trial
BAGHDAD — The genocide trial of Saddam Hussein resumed Monday with testimony that his troops buried prisoners alive and abused female prisoners by shackling them for hours in the sun and firing over their heads as they bathed.
Saddam and his six co-defendants are on trial for offences allegedly committed against Iraqi Kurds during a crackdown in the late 1980s. If convicted, the defendants could be sentenced to death by hanging.
One woman, who testified behind a curtain and whose name was withheld apparently for fear of reprisal, told the court she was 13 years old when she was detained during the crackdown.
The woman said Iraqi troops destroyed her village in northern Iraq in 1988 and that she and some family members were imprisoned in southern Iraq.
A prison warden she identified as Hajaj “used to drag women, their hands and feet shackled, and leave them in scorching sun for several hours,” she told the court.
“Soldiers used to watch us bathe,” she added, saying the guards would also fire weapons over the women’s heads as they washed.
The woman said several relatives disappeared during the offensive.
“I know the fate of my family (members). They were buried alive,” she testified.
The prosecution presented the court with documents showing that remains of the women’s relatives turned up in a mass grave.
“I’d like to ask Saddam: ’what crime did women and children commit’?” the witness said.
The court heard from three other witnesses, including farmer Abdul-Hadi Abdullah Mohammed, who testified that his mother had died in detention. Several other family members went missing in 1988 and are presumed dead, he added.
Jalil Lateef Saleh, 64, said he, his wife and young daughters were arrested in 1988 after an attack on their village. Prison guards separated him from his family and he has not seen them since, he said.
“They tore up my identity card and threw it into my face telling me that I was an Iranian and didn’t deserve the Iraqi ID,” he testified.
Saddam and his cousin, “Chemical” Ali Hassan al-Majid, are facing charges of genocide in the trial. Five others on trial face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Saddam and the other defendants sat silently as the trial resumed after a 12-day break. They were not represented by lawyers.
Related:
Grave found of 18 Kurds 'buried alive' during Saddam rule
September 4, 2006 AFP -- Iraqi security forces have found the remains of 18 Kurdish men, women and children whom they believe were buried alive in a mass grave during the former regime of Saddam Hussein.Colonel Sarhad Kadar of the Iraqi police said Monday the mass grave had been found in Tarkalan 25 kilometres (16 miles) southeast of the northern city of Kirkuk in the grounds of an abandoned military camp dating from the 1980s and 1990s."They were alive when they were buried," he said.During the late 1980s, Saddam's forces carried out a brutal scorched earth campaign against northern Iraq's Kurdish minority in a bid to stamp out separatism and secure Kirkuk's oil fields.The former strongman was overthrown in 2003 in a US-led invasion and is now on trial in Baghdad accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in an operation which prosecutors say killed 182,000 Kurds.
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