| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq |
| Witness says Saddam's secret police 'sold' his sister |
| 2006-10-12 |
| A witness in Saddam Hussein's genocide trial said Wednesday that the ex-president's agents ran a human trafficking ring that "sold" his sister and other Kurdish women in the 1980s. Defense lawyers and one of Saddam's co-defendants immediately challenged the charge as hearsay based on a forged document. Saddam and six other defendants are on trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their roles in a 1987-1988 crackdown against Kurds. The prosecution says about 180,000 people, mostly civilians, died in the offensive. Witness Abdel-Khaliq Qader presented chief Judge Mohammad al-Oreibi with an account published in an Iraqi Kurdish newspaper of a document purportedly showing the intelligence department in the city of Kirkuk had sold 18 women to Egypt's intelligence service. The document listed his sister's name and included women as young as 14, Qader said. Defendant Saber al-Douri, who headed military intelligence under Saddam, told the judge the purported document misidentified the intelligence service and was clearly a fake. The witness testified after Saddam had accused the court of preventing him from defending himself. "When the accuser and prosecutor talk, the world listens. When the man called 'the accused' speaks, you switch off the microphone. Is this fair?" Saddam told Oreibi in a calm voice. "You won't lose anything by listening. This is the duty of a judge." The judge replied: "The microphone issue is to bring order in the court, if you say anything within the law [and I silence you], then you can complain." |
| Posted by:Fred |