Saddam Hussein trial adjourns for 2 weeks
13:05' 15/02/2006 (GMT+7)

The trial of Saddam Hussein and his seven codefendants on Tuesday adjourned until Feb. 28, after defiant Saddam said he and his aides have been on hunger strike for three days.

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Saddam Hussein attends the trial in Baghdad, Feb. 14. Saddam said he and his aides have been on hunger strike for three days. (Xinhua Photo)

Saddam stood before chief judge Raouf Rasheed Abdul Rahman and chanted slogans supporting the Iraqi insurgents against U.S.-Iraqi troops.

Saddam said they had been on a hunger strike for three days to protest the way they were treated.

"We have been on hunger strike for three days protesting the bad treatment from you and your leaders," Saddam told the court.

Saddam and his codefendants were forced to attend the trial and the court discharged their defense team.

The defense team in Jordan said on Sunday that Saddam and his codefendants were going on hunger strike but later denied their claim because "the information had been incorrect".

The prosecutors brought members of Saddam regime for the second day to testify in an attempt to link Saddam Hussein and his aides with the torture and executions that allegedly took place in a1982 crackdown in the Shiite town of Dujail.

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The first witness who spoke behind curtain denied that he knew anything about the Dujail massacre, saying that he was just a government employee at that time.

"I haven't been serving in the Hakmiyah (inquiry department of intelligence agency) so I don't know the details," the witness told the court.

A second witness Fadil Slfiej al-Azawi, a retired diplomat, also denied that he was aware about the details of the Dujail massacre.

"I won't testify in this case because I wasn't part of it and I don¡¯t have any details about it," said Azawi. "I was the Iraqi ambassador to the (then) Soviet Union when the Dujail case happened."

The prosecution showed a document dated July 21, 1982, or 12 days after the assassination attempt on Saddam.

The document said that the Mukhabarat (Iraqi intelligence agency) headed by Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother, recommended rewards for six employees for their role in the arrests in Dujail.

The third witness was Hamed Yousif Hammadi, Saddam's personal secretary during 1980s and culture minister until the U.S. invasion in March 2003.

Judge Rahman adjourned the trial until Feb. 28 after the hearing.

Saddam and his aides are charged with crimes against humanity, including the killing of over 140 Shiite men in Dujail after a failed assassination attempt on Saddam in 1982.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet

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