Saddam to face trial for genocide against Kurds

BAGHDAD, Aug 21 (Reuters) Saddam Hussein goes on trial today for genocide against Iraq's Kurds, who accuse him of killing more than 100,000 of their kin in a campaign that included poison gas attacks.

The ousted president, who is awaiting a verdict in another trial on charges of killing 148 Shi'ite Muslim men and boys, is likely to challenge the legitimacy of the special tribunal by saying it was created under US occupation.

Saddam's six co-defendants include his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, widely known as ''Chemical Ali'' for his alleged use of poison gas to put down insurrection in the Kurdish heartland in northern Iraq.

They face charges for their role in military offensives codenamed Anfal -- the Spoils of War -- after the title of a chapter of the Koran.

Once closely backed by Washington in his 1980-88 war against Iran, Saddam faces the dock in a U.S.-run court again in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, home to his lavish palaces.

Iraqi forces are accused of launching mustard gas and nerve agent attacks in the Anfal campaign, seen as one of the most potent symbols of Kurdish suffering under Saddam.

''After what he did to us, he doesn't deserve a trial. I will only be happy once he is hanged,'' said 52-year-old Atiya Rada in the village of Sewsenan, where residents say Saddam's forces ordered residents to leave or face summary execution.

All seven accused face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the seven-month onslaught. Saddam and Majid face the additional, graver charge of genocide, which also carries the death penalty.

VILLAGES RAZED Many villages were razed and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced or killed. Arabs from the south were relocated in Kurdistan to erase the identity of the Kurds, a non-Arab mountainous people who speak their own language.

Investigations into the Anfal case have produced 9,000 pages of material and up to 200 documents are expected to be presented to the chamber of chief judge Abdullah al-Amiri, a member of the Shi'ite sect oppressed by Saddam.

A US official close to the court said the documents were recovered from buildings in northern Iraq after Western powers set up a no-fly zone there to block Saddam's forces from harming Kurds following the 1991 Gulf War.

Saddam and his co-accused are likely to argue that their crackdown was justified because Kurdish rebels and their leaders had committed treason by forming alliances with arch-enemy Iran.

US and Iraqi officials had hoped the first trial against Saddam for the killings of Shi'ites in the town of Dujail after an attempt on his life there would lead to swift justice.

But the trial has been marred by the killings of three defence lawyers and the resignation of the chief judge to protest against what he said was government interference.

The US-based Human Rights Watch group said the tribunal's administration was chaotic and inadequate, making it unable to handle the Anfal trial fairly.

REUTERS SK PM0533