(VOI) - Iraq's Central Criminal Court on Tuesday decided to postpone its session on the trial regarding the execution of 40 merchants in 1992 to July 16 after hearing the plaintiffs' statements and the presentation of a corroborating documentary.The court began proceedings during Tuesday's session, headed by Raouf Abdel Rahmam Rasheed, by presenting a documentary showing the cutting of a merchant's hand who testified as an eyewitness. The merchant told the court 'security forces (in 1992) cut his right hand and mistreated him before he fled to the Netherlands as a political refugee via Amman.'
Speaking behind a screen with a voice-distorting device to conceal his identity, the first eyewitness recalled 'how events took place four months before the execution of merchants in 1992,' adding 'his relative told him while he was in Amman that his father , an uncle, and a cousin were among the slain.'
The court session concluded with Ali Hassan al-Majid, former president Saddam Hussein's step brother and his staunch henchman, who spoke about undergoing hard circumstances in the detention center. 'He has been severed from his family since his arrest in 2003,' he noted, adding 'he was allowed for contacting once this year for only ten minutes.' .
One of the defendants, Sabawi Ibrahim, Saddam's second step-brother, denied any role, saying the agency that conducted the arrests was not affiliated with the public security forces, which he headed at the time.'
The session witnessed a strained debate between Judge Raouf Rasheed and a defendant Sabawi before dismissing the latter from the courtroom.
Tariq Aziz, the diplomat who served as the public face of Saddam Hussein's government, appeared in court on Tuesday accused of being part of a 'systematic campaign' to kill over 40 Iraqi merchants. The deaths came in a sweep conducted by the government in 1992 against merchants on charges of destroying Iraq's economy crushed by the imposed UN sanctions.
The case is the fourth one to be run by the Criminal Court and the first for Tariq Aziz, Saddam' s best lieutenant who was promoted to deputy prime minister in the 1990's. The court is presided over by Judge Raoud Rasheed, who handed down the the death verdict to Saddam Hussein.