BAGHDAD: Saddam Hussein returned to court on Wednesday to face genocide charges by immediately accusing the country's Interior Ministry of killing and torturing thousands of Iraqis, remarks aimed at inflaming sectarian tensions. "It's the side that kills thousands in the street and tortures them, " he said, criticising the Shia-run ministry that Sunni Arabs have accused of running death squads against them. Saddam was the only defendant in the chamber. After chief judge Raouf Abdel Rahman dismissed Saddam's comments that it was a trial under occupation, one of his lawyers pointed across the courtroom to an American. Abdel Rahman threatened to arrest her for 24 hours and then cut off the sound system when Saddam started to recite poetry.
