Hussein Presents a Spirited Defense

The doe-eyed faces of 28 Iraqi children allegedly executed on Saddam Hussein’s orders clashed with photographs of detainees abused at Abu Ghraib as the former Iraqi president faced the first day of cross-examination at his trial Wednesday, and both sides played to the world’s cameras.

The sparring by Hussein, his defense team, prosecutors and the judge, which ranged well beyond the scope of the case, marked another day in which drama for a televised audience appeared to trump jurisprudence at the trial.

Hussein presented a spirited though rambling defense of his orders to execute Shiite Muslims from the village of Dujayl, and questioned the court’s legitimacy.

He and seven codefendants could face the death penalty on charges of crimes against humanity in the case, which involves the execution, detention, torture and banishment of hundreds of people from Dujayl, allegedly in retribution for an attempt on Hussein’s life there in 1982.

The trial is scheduled to resume today.

Prosecutors hit Hussein with striking images: a videotape of the young former dictator vowing to kill thousands of his enemies, years before the Dujayl massacre, and photographs of the 28 juveniles, one allegedly as young as 12, who were among those executed.

The defense team, which includes Lebanese and Egyptian legal consultants, played to anger in the Arab world by attempting to show abuses committed during the U.S. military occupation -- a move that got defense attorney Bushra Khalil tossed from the courtroom and threatened with a contempt charge.

“It was like a battlefront,” Khalil said. “It was full of suspense and surprises.”

With a flood of news releases and media appearances, prosecutors a day earlier formally indicted Hussein on genocide charges related to the Anfal campaign, a series of attacks in the late 1980s that killed as many as 100,000 Kurds with chemical and conventional weapons, and pulverized ancient mountain villages.

Hussein, the only one of the eight to appear in the defendants’ dock, wore his signature black suit over a dark sweater and white shirt buttoned up to his neck, in the conservative style of middle-class Arab merchants. As president, Hussein favored silk ties and custom-tailored suits.

The former Iraqi dictator listened to the evidence silently, pressing two fingers against his cheeks, occasionally smiling. But when it was his turn to talk, Hussein dodged and weaved around questions, made dramatic and politically charged comments and lambasted the court and the Kurdish judge, whom he accused of being biased.

“Your title and position are illegal and illegitimate,” Hussein told Judge Raouf Rasheed Abdel Rahman. “How can you judge the president of Iraq who stood as a spear against all who plotted against Iraq?”

The judge and the prosecutor appeared to be exasperated by Hussein’s monologues. At times, the depiction of Hussein’s brutal management style and his sarcastic demeanor startled observers. At one point, the lead prosecutor marveled at how Hussein could spend only two days deliberating before signing execution orders.

“It took you two days to endorse the court sentence,” Jaafar Mousawi said. “Do you think that was enough?”

“What do you expect me to do, convene parliament,” Hussein replied. “This is the right of the head of state.”

When Mousawi presented the names of the 28 Dujayl boys who were executed, Hussein countered testily that he “would never kill an Iraqi child” and questioned the authenticity of the evidence.

“I don’t recognize the identification cards,” Hussein said. “They are faked. I don’t believe any document released now.

“This is hostile propaganda.”

Hussein set the political tone early, condemning Iraq’s controversial Shiite-controlled Interior Ministry, accused by his fellow Sunni Arabs of spawning death squads and torture chambers.

His savvy take on contemporary politics took some observers by surprise.

“He seems very well informed about what’s going on in Iraq right now,” said Leila Nadya Sadat, a professor of international law at Washington University in St. Louis, who watched segments of the trial on the Internet. “He was quite canny at trying to present current events in Iraq as a way of casting doubt on the trial.”

Hussein argued that he compensated Dujayl residents for the razing of their orchards.

“The area attracted criminals and people on the run,” he said of the groves. “The people in the orchards could not work.”

But the prosecution used the videotaped harangue by a much younger Hussein to paint his leadership style in less benign shades.

“Anyone who’s against the revolution, if there were one or two or three or 4,000 of them, I’d cut off their heads,” Hussein, wearing a blue suit, said in the tape. “My heart wouldn’t hesitate. People like that won’t get any sympathy from me. If an ant died, I would feel sorry for it. But if people are traitors, I’ll kill them no matter who they are.”

He added, “Those who die during interrogation are worth nothing. An enemy could easily die during interrogation.”

Defense attorneys exploded. They argued that the tape was irrelevant because it was made well before the Dujayl incident -- possibly before Hussein assumed the presidency.

“I was a young man,” Hussein said. “What has this to do with the matter you’re charging me with?”

Throughout the day, Hussein’s team also presented a more substantive preview of its defense. Attorneys will argue that the court is illegitimate because it was established under U.S. occupation, that the Kurdish judge is biased against the defense and that evidence may have been forged.

At one point, defense attorney Khalil, a prominent Lebanese Shiite jurist, so angered the judge that she was kicked out of the courtroom. The incident was deleted from the delayed broadcast, which was shown in its near entirety on many Iraqi and other Arabic-language news channels.

“You are not behaving well,” the judge told her. “You are not disciplined.”

“I’ve been trying to talk since morning,” she yelled back.

“Get her out of here,” the judge ordered the bailiffs.

“I want to show you what Americans do to prisoners,” Khalil yelled, holding up photographs of naked men being held at the Abu Ghraib prison, before she was escorted out.

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Staff writers Shamil Aziz and Saif Rasheed contributed to this report.