Baghdad, Iraq – A former judge from Saddam Hussein’s regime admitted Monday to sentencing 148 Shiites to death in the 1980s, but maintained they received a fair trial and had confessed to trying to assassinate the former Iraqi leader.
The head of Hussein’s Revolutionary Court, Awad al-Bandar, came under tough questioning over the conduct of the 1984 trial.
Al-Bandar acknowledged he sentenced the Shiites to death but said their trial was conducted “in accordance with the law.” He said all confessed to their role in the attack and that they were given a trial that they attended, with lawyers.
Hussein and his half brother, former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim – who did not appear Monday – are expected to testify in the next session Wednesday.
The former Iraqi leader and seven regime officials are charged with killing the 148 Shiites, as well as illegal imprisonment and torture of hundreds of others in the crackdown launched after Hussein’s motorcade was fired on as it passed through the Shiite town of Dujayl in 1982.
Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi presented documents from the Mukhabarat intelligence agency at the time stating that some of the 148 died during interrogation before they could be executed.
He repeatedly asked al-Bandar how all the defendants could have appeared before the Revolutionary Court if some had already died.
Co-defendant Taha Yassin Ramadan – who is accused of helping direct the crackdown and organizing the razing of Dujayl farmlands in retaliation – said that members of the Iranian-backed Shiite opposition Dawa Party tried to kill Hussein and that the 148 Shiites tried and sentenced to death in the crackdown “spoke frankly about what they did.”
