Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and his key co-defendants were back in court Wednesday, as Defence lawyers presented witnesses for the third day running in the trial for crimes against humanity.The court session adjourned until Monday after hearing from nine Defence witnesses speaking on behalf of minor Baathist officials accused of helping Saddam's regime in a massacre of 148 Shiite villagers in the 1980s. Chief judge Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman told the court that to "establish justice, we prefer to bring in all defendants today with their lawyers."
Saddam and three high-profile former aides had been kept out of court on Tuesday as testimony focused on four lesser-known defendants, who had all been officials in the ruling Baath party. For security reasons, witnesses continued to testify anonymously on behalf of the four Dujail defendants from behind a screen. Their remarks, or those of the Defence lawyers, showed most of them to be family members or at least fellow tribesmen of the defendants.