IRAQ: Saddam Hussein returned to court yesterday after a two-session boycott, launching at once into a tirade against the new chief judge and complaining he had been forced to attend his trial.
In a resumption of chaotic hearings, two of his former senior aides told the chamber they were forced to appear as witnesses. One of them accused the chief prosecutor of being a former member of Saddam's intelligence services, throwing a new twist into an unpredictable trial.
Saddam slammed his fist on the railing of his metal pen as he berated no-nonsense chief judge Raouf Abdel Rahman.
"You don't have the right to sit on that chair because you are ignorant of the law," he told the judge, a member of the Kurdish ethnic group Saddam is accused of killing and torturing.
The court was later adjourned until today. The toppled Iraqi leader refused an offer of court-appointed lawyers to replace his defence team, which walked out of the court last month to protest against the tough new chief judge.
Saddam, who still calls himself the president of Iraq, has boycotted the last two hearings since he and several of his seven co-accused staged a walkout on January 29th.
He and his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti quickly went into attack mode yesterday. "This is not a court, this is a game," Saddam said. "I was forced into the courtroom. Exercise your right and sentence me in absentia," he told the judge. Saddam and his co-accused are charged with the killing of 148 men from the mostly Shi'ite town of Dujail in reprisal for a bid to assassinate Saddam there in 1982.
The trial has already been marred by the resignation of the first chief judge and the killings of two defence lawyers.
Two former aides of Saddam told the court they had been forced to appear as witnesses, reinforcing the concern of some human rights groups that a fair trial is impossible in Iraq.
Hassan al-Obeidi, a former intelligence director, and Ahmed Khudayir, the ex-head of Saddam's office, had both been in detention and said they did not want to testify.
Khudayir said he was blindfolded and handcuffed when he was brought to the court, where most of the judges, fearing for their lives, refuse to identify themselves or be filmed. Prosecutors hope testimony from former senior officials who served under Saddam will help establish a chain of command from the ousted president to atrocities on the ground.