Kurdish Witnesses Take the Stand Against Saddam in Anfal Trial
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
BAGHDAD, Iraq — The night before, guards separated men from women, children from adults before reading a list of names “like the day of judgment.” As morning broke, soldiers loaded those who had been called onto windowless buses, taking them to the desert.
The Kurdish detainees were tied, blindfolded, and their identification papers were taken away. Then the guards opened fire.
“All around us was dirt and smoke,” the witness recalled yesterday, testifying in the trial of Saddam Hussein on charges of genocide. “At first I thought I was hit, but I just didn’t feel it.”
The Kurdish man, whose name was not released to protect his identity, took the stand in the Baghdad courtroom to recount how he feigned death to escape.
Thrown into a mass grave along with his cousin, he stayed still among the dead and the dying even as an officer came down in the trench, shooting those who were still moving. After night fell, the witness said, he was able to climb out of the pit and flee the killing fields.
Yesterday’s account by five witnesses echoed previous testimony in the trial.
Saddam and six co-defendants face charges in the deaths of tens of thousands of Kurds by firing squad and chemical warfare during a campaign in the late 1980s known as Anfal, or “spoils of war.” Although the stated goal of the campaign was to suppress a Kurdish uprising, most of the victims were civilians.
Bafreen Mohammed, 39, testified that an aerial attack on her village killed her 7-year-old son and blinded her.
While the testimony has been dramatic, there have been fewer theatrics in the courtroom during the Anfal case than in a previous trial of Saddam for the deaths of 148 Shiite Muslims in the village of Dujail during the 1980s. However, in September, the entire defense team walked out of the current trial, protesting the removal of a previous judge.
Saddam’s lawyer briefly returned to the courtroom Monday after the month-long absence but left again after an argument with the new judge, Mohammed Orabi Khalefa.
In the Dujail case, Saddam and seven co-defendants are scheduled to be sentenced on Sunday and could face death by hanging. However, the lead prosecutor has suggested that the verdict might be postponed.
