Saddam Hussein told his trial today he was beaten in US custody and, in an extraordinary outburst towards the end of the hearing, also said those who had tortured Iraqis should be punished for their crimes.
Saddam Hussein sits in his defendant's chair at the resumption of his trial two weeks after he refused to attend the last session in a court he called 'unjust'
The former Iraqi president spent most of the session sitting quietly in the defendants' dock as prosecution witnesses told the court of the beatings and abuse they and other former detainees say they suffered in Saddam's jails.
But late in the hearing, the man who ruled Iraq for a quarter of a century rose to his feet and told the judge he had been abused by US forces since his arrest in late 2003.
"I have been hit by the Americans and tortured," he said, speaking purposefully.
"I have been beaten on every place of my body, and the signs are all over my body."
Then, in one of the more conciliatory statements he has made during the trial, he said those guilty of the alleged torture described by the witnesses should be punished, apparently distancing himself from the accusations.
"When I hear that any Iraqi has been hurt it hurts me too," the 68-year-old said. "The wrongs that were done to those people were wrong and, according to law, those who did it should get what they deserve."
Speaking in Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack described Saddam's claim that he was tortured as "highly ironic" and said he knew of nothing to substantiate it.
"Look, he's been given to grandstanding in this trial, but where the focus should be is on the testimony of those people who were victimised ..." he told reporters. "That's what people should be listening to."
The court heard from three witnesses who made some of the most coherent, specific and at times chilling allegations yet against Saddam's followers.
One witness told the court how guards in Saddam's intelligence service heated up plastic tubing and allowed the hot plastic to drip onto the bodies of victims.
A second said he was given electric shocks. While he screamed in agony in the torture chamber at the headquarters of the intelligence service in Baghdad, Saddam's half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti ate grapes and watched, the witness said.
The third witness, who, like the second, spoke from behind a curtain to hide his identity, said Saddam's guards attached electrodes to his hands, feet and penis and gave him electric shocks before pulling out his fingernails and toenails.
Saddam and seven co-defendants including Barzan are charged with crimes against humanity relating to the killing of 148 people from the mainly Shia village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, in the 1980s.
Prosecutors say Saddam ordered the killings in reprisal for a failed bid to assassinate him in the village in 1982. Scores of families from Dujail were rounded up and shunted between jails around Iraq for four years after the attack.
After hearing around six hours of testimony, Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin adjourned proceedings until Thursday, when he was expected to call two more prosecution witnesses.