IRAQ: Ali Mustafa Hama the first witness to give evidence against the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein tells of the day planes dropped poison gas on his village.

An Iraqi Kurd told Saddam Hussein's genocide trial on Tuesday (August 22) how jets dropped poison gas smelling of rotten apples on his mountain village. Taking the stand in Baghdad on the second day of the trial Ali Mustafa Hama was the first witness to give evidence against the former Iraqi leader. He told how he spotted planes before something was dropped from the air. "Birds were returning to their nests. I saw eight to 12 jets patrolling the sky. There was greenish smoke from the bombs. There was a smell of rotten apple or garlic. "People were vomiting," he said. "We were blinded. We were screaming. There was no one to save us, only God." Hama was speaking of events nearly a year before the formal launch of the so-called Anfal campaign in 1988 - Spoils of War - in the Balisan valley north of Sulaimaniya. The witness, in his early 50s, recalled April 16, 1987: "There were two women. One of them was pregnant. When she gave birth, the little infant was trying to see the world. He breathed in the chemicals and died." During cross-examination, defence counsel asked how he could tell the aircraft were Iraqi and prompted Hama to say that he had helped shelter guerrillas in his village. Saddam himself challenged the witness, asking: "Who told you to say this?" Two of Saddam's former military commanders, among six fellow defendants charged with war crimes, had earlier been allowed to make brief statements in their defence, in which they portrayed the 1988 Anfal campaign as a legitimate response to Iraqi Kurds fighting alongside Iran against Baghdad. "The Iranians and Kurds were fighting hand in hand against the Iraqi forces," former military intelligence chief Sabir al-Douri said, recalling Saddam's 1980-88 war against Iran's then new Islamist rulers, in which he had tacit U.S. support. In a pointed remark going to the heart of sectarian tension around the trial of Saddam's Sunni-dominated secular regime, Douri recalled telling a friend he would never be prosecuted for his actions at that time "unless Iran occupies Iraq". Many minority Sunni Arabs portray the rise to power of the Shi'ite Muslim majority following the U.S. overthrow of Saddam as an occupation by Shi'ite Islamist Iran, prompting critics to question whether Saddam and his aides can have a fair trial. Saddam and his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, are charged with genocide over the seven-month campaign. Majid earned his nickname "Chemical Ali" after poison gas attacks in the north. A verdict in the first of Saddam's trials, for crimes against humanity over the killing of 148 Shi'ite men from Dujail, is expected in October. Frustrated by a slow legal process, Iraqis expressed hope on Tuesday (August 22) that the trial for the Anfal genocide against the Kurds will end quickly and help restore peace and stability to the country. "I believe the Anfal case is not complicated and intricate but rather it is a clear case, so proceedings should be faster and easier than these of Dujail," said one Baghdad resident. "Saddam's trial has dragged on for too long. Saddam is a tyrant who oppressed the Iraqi people in an unprecedented way so they should finish the trial of Saddam Hussein quickly to wipe out terrorism" said another. And in the city of Arbil the Kurdish population is delighted Saddam's on trial for the Anfal genocide. One man described it as "the happiest day of our lives".

ITN Source | August 22, 2006

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