‘82 Dujayl Executions Legal, Former Iraqi Judge Testifies

A former judge for Saddam Hussein’s Revolutionary Court took the stand at the Iraqi tribunal Thursday and insisted that the death sentences he imposed on 148 Shiite Muslims in 1982 were lawful.

Dressed in a traditional robe and a checkered head scarf, Awad Hamed Bandar defended his decision to condemn the accused residents of Dujayl to death, saying that they were found guilty of joining a banned political party and conspiring with Iran during Iraq’s war with the neighboring nation.

Hussein, who offered a spirited defense Wednesday, did not attend the hearing Thursday in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.

Hussein, Bandar and six codefendants are being tried by the special tribunal on charges of crimes against humanity in the executions of nearly 150 Dujayl residents. Prosecutors allege that Hussein ordered a retaliatory massacre of villagers after an attempt on his life during a 1982 visit to the village.

On Tuesday, investigators for the tribunal filed genocide charges against Hussein and six former aides for their alleged involvement in the Anfal campaign, eight attacks against Kurdish villages in 1988 that included the use of chemical weapons and killed tens of thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq.

Speaking in a reedy voice, Bandar looked tired and anxious as he cast himself as a dutiful judge who had no choice under the law but to hand down the death sentences in the Dujayl case.

“They tried to carry out a coup,” Bandar said of the accused Shiites. “This was first announced in the Iranian media, and they all confessed to having allied with Iran.”

At another point, he insisted that the panel he headed “was a legal and just court.”

Bandar acknowledged that membership in the then-outlawed Islamic Dawa Party, now a leading political power within the Iraqi government, was punishable by death.

Bandar argued that the Dujayl residents he condemned had received a full trial and could avail themselves of an appeals process -- all within 16 days, the time between their arrest and executions. He insisted that he worked from 9 a.m. to midnight each day on the case. However, he noted that all 148 defendants were represented by a single attorney appointed by his court.

Responding to pictures of young prisoners executed in 1982 that have been shown on global broadcasts of the trial, Bandar said the court used medical personnel to certify that all the accused were adults. When prosecutor Jaafar Mousawi presented identity documents of one 15-year-old who was executed, Bandar said the documents were fakes, intended to allow Dujayl residents to avoid mandatory military service.

“Why would I sentence any minor? I have no dispute with them,” Bandar said.

Bandar attempted to distance himself from culpability by testifying that he was simply carrying out laws under Hussein’s Baath Party regime. He also insisted that the intelligence services were directly responsible for the executions, since they had handed over to his court damning evidence on the Dujayl residents.

“I didn’t make the law,” he said.

Bandar repeatedly complained that documentary evidence in his trial, including his signed ruling sentencing the defendants to death, was selectively released in a manner skewed against him. He repeatedly asked the trial judge to make the entire Dujayl case file available to him.

“The file is something that benefits me, and hiding it hurts me,” he said.

As Bandar defended himself, Kurdish officials announced the discovery of a series of mass graves containing 1,000 corpses near the northern city of Kirkuk.

Human rights officials have estimated that more than 300,000 bodies were buried in mass graves around Iraq during Hussein’s quarter-century rule.

Kurdish officials said a laborer found the graves while digging at a construction site. They said the majority of the victims appeared to have been Kurds killed by Hussein’s regime.

Times special correspondent Ali Windawi in Kirkuk contributed to this report.