Citing Saddam threats, prosecutors want new judge

BAGHDAD, Sep 13: Prosecutors in Saddam Hussein's genocide trial today demanded that the chief judge resign for letting defendants make speeches and threaten witnesses, a day after Saddam pledged to ''crush the heads'' of his accusers.

''The defendants have gone too far with unacceptable expressions and words. The defendants have uttered clear threats. The chief prosecutor's office requests the judge step down,'' lead prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon said, adding the court had become a ''political forum'' for Saddam and six co-accused.

Dismissing the request, presiding judge Abdullah al-Amiri defended his approach to Saddam's trial for genocide against ethnic Kurds in the 1980s by recalling how a successor to the Prophet Mohammad allowed the accused to voice their opinions.

He also cited his 25 years of experience.

''The judge should coordinate and make peace so nobody takes advantage of his fairness,'' he said in the third hearing this week of a trial that began last month.

The unusual move came a day after a tumultuous session in which Saddam defended his Sunni-led regime's policy of crushing Kurdish rebels fighting alongside Shi'ite Iran during the final years of the Iraq-Iran war.

The toppled leader also raged against ''agents of Iran and Zionism'' after lawyers for the witnesses said Kurdish rebels were fighting against his ''dictatorship and tyranny''. Saddam shouted ''coward'' to a witness who taunted him for being ''in a cage''. Saddam was uncharacteristically quiet today and followed proceedings clutching a Koran. The judge adjourned the court until tomorrow after listening to four witnesses recount how their villages were gassed or how the remains of their relatives appeared in faraway mass graves.

Eager to speed up the trial, Amiri has avoided confrontation with the defendants and their lawyers in a bid to avoid the delays of the first Saddam trial, in which Saddam used the televised sessions to slam the U.S.-backed court as political vendetta and to urge followers to revolt in lengthy tirades.

Saddam, 69, his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majeed, known as ''Chemical Ali'', and five other former commanders face a possible death penalty on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their role in the 1988 Anfal -- Spoils of War -- campaign that prosecutors said left 182,000 ethnic Kurds dead.

A civil attorney said Saddam had ''injured Anfal's victims''.

Salah Gader Mohammed Ameen broke down in tears as he told the court how the identity cards of his mother and brother, who disappeared along with his father and another brother, were unearthed in a mass grave 230 km away from their village.

''I was only 10 years old when I lost my mum and dad. Nobody can compensate me,'' he said sobbing in the witnesses box.

Former peshmerga fighter Omer Othmam Mahommed said warplanes bombed mountains with chemical weapons: ''I saw some 2,000 to 3,000 sheep dead. The shepherd also died in the attack.'' A verdict is expected next month on whether Saddam is guilty of crimes against humanity over the killing of 148 Shi'ite men following a 1982 assassination attempt against him.

Oppressed under Saddam, Shi'ites and Kurds are the dominant political forces in Iraq following U.S.-backed elections.

Reuters