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Saddam Hussein on hunger strike

Ate nothing for three days: ex-President

BAGHDAD: Saddam Hussein and three former officials in his regime on Tuesday told the court handling their trial that they were on a hunger strike in protest of the judge overseeing the proceedings.

Mr. Hussein said he had not eaten in three days, while his former intelligence chief, Barzan Ibrahim, said he had been on strike for two days. Two other defendants, Awad Bandar and former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, also said they were on strike.

Their claims of a hunger strike could not be independently confirmed. The defendants are being held in U.S. detention, and U.S. officials could not immediately be reached to comment.

But investigative judge Raid Juhi did not deny the defendants were refusing food when asked about the strike after the day's three-hour session. ``This is an administrative problem that the court is working to verify and it will work also to solve it... with the responsible parties in the custodial authorities,'' he told reporters.

``But, as you could see, the defendants are in good health,'' he said. Chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman, who took over the court last month, has worked to impose order in a court where outbursts and arguments have frequently overshadowed the testimony.

But after a short period of shouting at the start of Tuesday's session, the court was calm as prosecutors continued for a second day trying to directly link Mr. Hussein and his co-defendants to arrests and executions of Shias carried out after a 1982 attempt on Mr. Hussein's life in the village of Dujail.

The prosecution presented a document said to be Mr. Hussein's approval for a recommendation of rewards to intelligence agents involved in the crackdown. Ibrahim, Saddam's half-brother, spoke at length to the tribunal, denying he had any part in the crackdown. — AP

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