Baghdad, Iraq – Handwriting experts confirmed Saddam Hussein’s signatures on two more key documents in the ousted Iraqi leader’s trial – one approving death sentences for 148 Shiites, the other ordering confiscation of farmlands, the judge said Wednesday.
Dressed in a black suit, Hussein was unusually silent throughout the three-hour session. But his half brother and co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim angrily rejected the experts’ report as biased.
Defense lawyers demanded a neutral, international panel of experts be formed to look at documents presented by the prosecution that allegedly were signed by Hussein or the seven other defendants.
Chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman did not rule on the demand for international experts, but he appeared dismissive of it and ordered Iraqi experts to continue examining remaining documents for the next session, scheduled for Monday.
Hussein and the former officials from his regime are on trial in connection with the deaths of the 148 Shiites and the imprisonment of hundreds of others in a crackdown following an assassination attempt against Hussein in the mainly Shiite town of Dujayl in 1982.
Prosecutors aimed to use the documents to show that Hussein, Ibrahim and the others were closely involved in the crackdown.
Hussein and Ibrahim refused to give handwriting samples, so the Iraqi experts relied on comparisons with other documents signed by the men unrelated to the Dujayl case.
