Saddam sent out of court again as lawyers boycott

BAGHDAD, Sep 25 (Reuters) Saddam Hussein lasted two hours in court today before the judge threw him out of his genocide trial for the second time in as many sessions, as the former Iraqi president's lawyers boycotted proceedings.

Eight court-appointed lawyers stood in for the defence team, which stayed away in protest at the sacking last week by the Iraqi government of the previous chief judge. The new judge had ejected Saddam during the last hearing on Wednesday, when the defence attorneys had also stormed out in anger.

During a noisy exchange today while one of the six other defendants quizzed a Kurdish witness, Saddam waved a yellow paper from his seat in the metal pen where the defendants sit, saying it was a request to be allowed not to appear in court: ''It dishonours me to talk to you,'' he told the chief judge.

''And I don't want to be in this cage any more.'' Telling him, ''It's not up to you'' and scoffing at Saddam's claim to legal qualifications, judge Mohammed al-Ureybi said he failed to observe courtroom discipline and was banishing him from court: ''Take him out,'' he told the guards.

The case concerns the Anfal (Spoils of War) offensive by Iraqi forces in the Kurdish north in 1988.

The court-appointed lawyers spoke up to interrogate witnesses from time to time. One of Saddam's co-defendants complained he did not want to be represented by someone he did not recognise. Another accepted an assurance from the judge that he would have a chance to meet his new attorney later.

TESTIMONY Witness Mohammed Rasul Mustafa, a Kurdish man in his 70s wearing a traditional scarf headdress, said he watched aircraft bomb a nearby village, giving off clouds that smelled of apples and gave him breathing difficulties. He was later imprisoned and last saw his wife and five children in jail.

He testified to seeing guards beat a man to death and said 400 to 500 other Kurds died while he was imprisoned.

Another man of a similar age, Rifat Mohammed Said, said girls confined with him in a prison near the southern city of Samawa complained of being raped by the camp commander.

Children died for want of their mothers' milk, wild dogs dug up the bodies of prisoners buried by their comrades, well water was brackish and one man was tied to a soccer goal and beaten.

The court was later adjourned till tomorrow after hearing a third witness.

Lawyers for Saddam and his co-defendants said yesterday they would stay away from the court ''in protest at the judge's behaviour''. Chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said: ''The court is committing intolerable mistakes -- overtly interfering in the trial procedure and removing and replacing judges.'' Saddam and his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as ''Chemical Ali'', face genocide charges for what prosecutors say are the deaths of 180,000 Kurds, some of them by gassing. Five others face crimes against humanity. All seven could hang.

The defence team walked out of the last hearing after the government had sacked judge Abdullah al-Amiri overnight. The government said Amiri was biased because he had said the previous week that Saddam was ''not a dictator''.

International legal rights groups criticised the move, saying it would hurt the legitimacy of the outcome of the historic trial, organised under U.S. supervision. Three defence counsel in another case involving Saddam have been killed.

Prosecutors said the original judge was letting Saddam intimidate witnesses. At one hearing he told his accusers he would ''crush their heads''.

The trial is the second Saddam has faced. A verdict in a year-old trial for crimes against humanity over the killing of 148 Shi'ites is expected next month. The first chief judge in that trial quit in protest against political interference.

REUTERS MQA PM1752