Saddam ignores murder charges

BAGHDAD – A defiant Saddam Hussein refused to enter a plea at his trial yesterday after he was charged with ordering the killing and torture of hundreds of Shi’ite villagers, telling the judge he was still Iraq’s president.

Insurgents shot down a US helicopter during fighting south of Baghdad on Sunday, killing two soldiers, the US military said yesterday. The incident took place near the town of Yusifiya 15 km south of the capital, a stronghold of the anti-government Sunni Arab insurgency that has raged since US forces invaded Iraq to topple Saddam three years ago.Formally charging him with crimes against humanity for the first time since the trial began in October, Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman read out detailed accusations against Saddam stemming from the killing of 148 Shi’ites after an attempt on Saddam’s life in 1982 in the village of Dujail.Rahman said the ousted president ordered the killing and torture of hundreds in the village, including women and children, and that he sent helicopters and planes to pound Dujail, north of Baghdad.Wearing a dark suit and white shirt, Saddam smiled as he listened to the charges, holding a Koran in his left hand.”This statement cannot influence me or shake a hair of my head.What matters to me is the Iraqi people and myself,” Saddam said.”I am president of Iraq by the will of the Iraqi people.”Replying the judge said: “You were, but not now.”Rahman said some of the men and women taken prisoner in Dujail by Saddam’s security forces were tortured with “blows to the head and electric shocks” and that five died under torture.He also read out the names of 32 of the 148 who were under 18 and therefore should not have been executed under then-existing Iraqi and international law, the judge said.The court then called Saddam’s half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, former chief of the feared intelligence security forces, who dismissed charges read out to him as “lies”.If found guilty, Saddam, 69, faces a death sentence.- Nampa-ReutersThe incident took place near the town of Yusifiya 15 km south of the capital, a stronghold of the anti-government Sunni Arab insurgency that has raged since US forces invaded Iraq to topple Saddam three years ago.Formally charging him with crimes against humanity for the first time since the trial began in October, Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman read out detailed accusations against Saddam stemming from the killing of 148 Shi’ites after an attempt on Saddam’s life in 1982 in the village of Dujail.Rahman said the ousted president ordered the killing and torture of hundreds in the village, including women and children, and that he sent helicopters and planes to pound Dujail, north of Baghdad.Wearing a dark suit and white shirt, Saddam smiled as he listened to the charges, holding a Koran in his left hand.”This statement cannot influence me or shake a hair of my head.What matters to me is the Iraqi people and myself,” Saddam said.”I am president of Iraq by the will of the Iraqi people.”Replying the judge said: “You were, but not now.”Rahman said some of the men and women taken prisoner in Dujail by Saddam’s security forces were tortured with “blows to the head and electric shocks” and that five died under torture.He also read out the names of 32 of the 148 who were under 18 and therefore should not have been executed under then-existing Iraqi and international law, the judge said.The court then called Saddam’s half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, former chief of the feared intelligence security forces, who dismissed charges read out to him as “lies”.If found guilty, Saddam, 69, faces a death sentence.- Nampa-Reuters