[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 15



IRAQ:

Saddam Refuses Plea


Saddam Hussein refused to enter a plea at his trial on Monday after he was
formally charged with ordering the killing and torture of hundreds of
Shi'ite villagers, telling the judge he was still Iraq's president.

The detailed charges read out by Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman stemmed from the
killing of 148 Shi'ites after an attempt on Saddam's life in 1982 in the
village of Dujail.

The ousted president was accused of ordering the killing and torture of
hundreds in the village, including women and children, and that he sent
helicopters and planes to pound Dujail, north of Baghdad.

Wearing a dark suit and white shirt, Saddam smiled as he listened to the
charges, holding a Koran in his left hand.

"This statement cannot influence me or shake a hair of my head. What
matters to me is the Iraqi people and myself," Saddam said. "I am
president of Iraq by the will of the Iraqi people."

Replying the judge said: "You were, but not now."

Rahman said some of the men and women taken prisoner in Dujail by Saddam's
security forces were tortured with "blows to the head and electric
shocks'' and that 5 died under torture.

He also read out the names of 32 of the 148 who were under 18 and
therefore should not have been executed under then-existing Iraqi and
international law, the judge said.

The court then called Saddam's half-brother Barzan al- Tikriti, former
chief of the feared intelligence security forces, who dismissed charges
read out to him were "lies."

If found guilty, Saddam, 69, faces a death sentence.

6 other co-accused are also being tried for the Dujail case, the first of
many trials the ousted leader could face.

Witnesses for the defense were expected to testify later in the day.

(source: Rerters)

****************************

Saddam refuses to enter plea to new charges


The chief judge formally charged Saddam Hussein on today with crimes
against humanity, including torture of women and children, murder and the
illegal arrest of 399 people in a crackdown against Shiites in the 1980s.
A defiant Saddam refused to enter a plea.

Saddam, who was alone in the defendants' pen as the charges were read,
stood holding a copy of the Quran and insisted he was still Iraq's
president, saying he did not recognize the court.

"Your honor, you gave a long report. That report can't be summed up by
saying guilty or not," Saddam, wearing a black suit, said after chief
judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman read the charges and asked for a plea.

"Your honor is now before Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq," Saddam
said. "I am the president of Iraq by the will of the Iraqis, and I remain
president of Iraq up to this moment. I respect the will of the Iraqi
people and I will defend it with honor in the face of the collaborators
and in the face of America.

"I do not recognize the collaborators that they brought to appoint a court
and put forward a law with retroactive effect against the head of state,
who is protected by the constitution and the law," he said.

Abdel-Rahman entered a "not guilty" plea on Saddam's behalf.

With the reading of charges, the trial - which began Oct. 19 - enters a
new phase, with the defense presenting its case. After hearing from 5
defense witnesses in the five-hour session, the court adjourned until
Tuesday.

Saddam and seven former members of his regime are on trial over a
crackdown against residents of the town of Dujail, and they face a
possible execution by hanging if found guilty.

Under the Iraqi trial system, the court first hears plaintiffs outline
their complaint against the defendants and the prosecutions' evidence
against them. Then the judges decide on specific charges, and the defense
begins making its case.

Security forces arrested hundreds of Dujail residents, including entire
families, in the wake of a 1982 assassination attempt against Saddam in
the town. Witnesses, including women, have recounted being tortured while
in prison and 148 Shiites were sentenced to death in connection to the
shooting attack on Saddam. All 148 were killed, either executed or dying
under interrogation.

The charges against Saddam read by Abdel-Rahman included the arrest of 399
people, the torture of women and children, and ordering the razing of
farmlands in retaliation.

He also was charged in the deaths of 9 people who Abdel-Rahman said were
killed in the first days of the crackdown, as well as the deaths of 148
who were sentenced to execution by his Revolutionary Court.

"After allegations of coming under an assassination attempt, you issued
orders to security forces and the army to arrest residents and use all
weapons against them," Abdel-Rahman told Saddam.

"As a result for your orders to use force against Dujail residents, nine
people were killed in the first two days ... and 399 others were
arrested," he said.

"According to orders from you, the presidential office transferred 148
persons, some of them died due to torture in Mukhabarat and Abu Ghraib, to
the Revolutionary Court ... which issued the death sentence against them
and you immediately ratified the death sentence in presidential document
No. 778 in June 1984," he said.

After Saddam, Abdel-Rahman called in the next defendant, Saddam's half
brother Barzan Ibrahim, former head of the Mukhabarat intelligence agency.
He read the same charges against Ibrahim.

"All you said are lies, everything you mentioned is a lie," Ibrahim
replied, and Abdel-Rahman recorded a plea of not guilty.

Abdel-Rahman then proceeded to call in each of the remaining defendants
one by one to read the charges against them. All the defendants were
charged under Article 12 of the 2005 criminal code of the Special Criminal
Tribunal, which defines crimes against humanity. All 6 other defendants
pleaded innocent.

After the charges were read, the defense began presenting its case, with
five witnesses testifying on behalf of several of the lesser
co-defendants.

The trial has faced numerous delays and setbacks - with 2 defense lawyers
killed soon after it began and repeated outbursts in court by Saddam and
Ibrahim slowing down the proceedings. A previous chief judge who was
criticized as being too lenient toward Saddam and Ibrahim's frequent
outbursts was replaced with Abdel-Rahman.

U.S. officials observing the trial have said they expect the trial to
speed up, with up to 3 sessions a week being held.

The special tribunal set up to try Saddam and his former regime officials
are preparing a second trial against the ousted leader on genocide charges
in connection to a 1980s military campaign against the Kurds known as
"Anfal" in which an estimated 100,000 people were killed.

In past session, the prosecution sought to show Saddam was closely
involved in the Dujail crackdown, presenting memos from Saddam's office
ordering the 148 put on trial before the Revolutionary Court and approving
the death sentences issued against them. Iraqi handwriting experts
authenticated Saddam's signatures on the documents, though the defense
questioned their findings. Saddam admitted in court that he ordered the
men put on trial.

Saddam and the other defendants have argued that their actions were a
legal response to the attempt to kill the former Iraqi leader, whose
motorcade came under fire in Dujail. The attack was blamed on the
Iranian-backed Shiite Dawa Party.

But prosecutors argued that the crackdown went far beyond the actual
authors of the attack to punish the entire town. It said the 148 were
sentenced to death after a fake trial, and that children as young as 11
were among those convicted.

Abdel-Rahman read charges against Awad al-Bandar, the head of the
Revolutionary Court. The only charge against him was the issuing of the
death sentences. "As the head of the disbanded revolutionary court, you
issued the decision of sentencing them (the 148) to death by hanging," he
told al-Bandar.

"I am innocent," al-Bandar replied.

Another co-defendant, Taha Yassin Ramadan - a member of Saddam's ruling
Revolutionary Command Council - was charged on the same counts as Ibrahim,
along with overseeing the confiscating and razing of farmlands of Dujail
residents. Ramadan also pleaded innocent.

The remaining defendants - Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid, Abdullah Kazim
Ruwayyid, Ali Dayih and Mohammed Azawi Ali, all lower-level Baath Party
officials from Dujail - were charged with informing on Dujail residents
who later either died in prison or were sentenced to death.

(source: Associated Press)