Witnesses testified for Saddam under threat: Judge

Baghdad, June 13 : A judge in Saddam Hussein's trial today said that two witnesses who testified for the former Iraqi leader said they had been forced to after their families had been threatened.

The judge read out what he said were statements from four defence witnesses, saying two of them said they took the stand for Saddam because they and their families were threatened.

The four were already at the centre of controversy after the court ordered them held on May 31 on suspicion of making false allegations against the prosecution, including that prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi had attended an event celebrating a 1982 assassination attempt on Saddam.

A defence lawyer said after their arrest that they were arrested because their testimony ''destroyed the credibility of the court'' and that they were beaten in custody.

The judge, one of five panel judges, said one witness said: ''One of Saddam's private guards forced me to testify for Saddam.'' He quoted the other witness as saying his son had been shot and wounded to force him to take the stand.

''I was forced to testify for the safety of my family,'' said the other witness, adding he had been told: ''You have three days to go to court or your son will be killed.'' The defence dismissed the statements, with one lawyer saying the four witnesses had said they signed blank papers.

Saddam, whose once-dominant Sunni Arab minority has seen its influence wane since his 2003 overthrow, also hit back by suggesting the witnesses were afraid of the police.

''The witnesses were taken and you investigated them in a threatening atmosphere,'' he said, referring to frequent reports of death squads operating within the police.

His statements came at the end of a trial session that saw guards force his co-accused, half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti out of the court after an argument with the chief judge.

''This is dictatorship,'' shouted Barzan as commotion erupted in the heavily protected courtroom.

Chief Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman had ordered that the former head of the intelligence service -- who like Saddam and six other defendants face charges of crimes against humanity leave the room after he repeatedly interrupted him.

The eight defendants are accused of reprisals that led to the killing of 148 Shi'ite Muslim men after an assassination attempt on Saddam in Dujail in 1982.

Defence lawyers have accused the prosecution, which completed its case in April, of trying to buy a witness and putting on the stand a man who perjured himself.

If convicted, the defendants could be hanged.

Reuters