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Saddam refuses to enter plea at genocide trial

Charges relate to crackdown against Kurds that left 100,000 dead

BAGHDAD: A new legal chapter opened on Monday for the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein when he went on trial for a second time, charged with genocide and war crimes from his scorched-earth offensive against Kurds that left around 100,000 people dead two decades ago.

Mr. Hussein refused to enter a plea at the start of the trial.

Mr. Hussein was led into the Iraqi High Tribunal in his dark business suit, along with six co-defendants accused of leading the savage 1987-88 Anfal campaign against Iraq's Kurdish minority.

Cousin follows suit

The strongman, who maintained his claim to be ``President of the Republic of Iraq'', refused to enter a plea and the judge ordered that a plea of ``innocent'' be entered in the record.

Mr. Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, who became notorious as ``Chemical Ali'', also refused to plead and was recorded as pleading innocent.

The start of the case was marked in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq by five minutes of silence on behalf of Anfal's victims, while Iraqis across the war-torn country tuned in to television coverage of the historic trial. ``I urge you to listen carefully to the details of these events... It is difficult to fathom the barbarity of such acts,'' chief prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon said as he began to lay out his case. ``Thousands of people were displaced across Iraq. Infants were looking for fathers, while families were looking for youngsters. But there was no hope. Women were transferred to detention centres, raped and tortured,'' he said. Prosecutors showed the court photographs of mass graves — including one in which the body of an infant still sucking a milk bottle was buried next to his mother — and detailed the eight stages of the Anfal campaign.

Beginning on February 22, 1988, the Iraqi air force began firing chemical weapons into the Juwaid Valley outside the northern city of Sulaimaniyah. This was followed up with an artillery barrage, the court heard.

Over the next eight months troops were sent into Kurdish regions, repeatedly using poison gas, as whole villages were isolated and attacked.

``Women, children were transferred to detention centres made in advance. Detainees suffered harshly. Camps had no basic services. Detainees were exposed to torture, insults and non-potable water,'' Mr. Faroon said.

``Those who died were buried outside the camps by the detainees and later animals were set free to dig up those graves, mostly in the Samawa desert. Women were put through psychological torture. Their babies were separated from them. The babies and the mothers were allowed to cry. Young men were raped by guards and officials,'' he told the court. — Agencies

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