IRAQ: Saddam Hussain's Kurdish genocide trial resumes as Iraqi death toll rises in Baquba and Baghdad

Saddam Hussein and six of his former commanders returned to a Baghdad court on Monday (November 27) to face charges of crimes against humanity for a military campaign against ethnic Kurds in the late 1980s. Iraq's former dictator, who has already received the death penalty in another trial for his role in the killings of 148 Shi'ite villagers after he escaped assassination in 1982, was last in court on Nov. 8. Some lawyers in the defence team were present in the session, but Saddam's chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi was absent. The defence has boycotted recent sessions in this trial. Defence lawyer Badea Aref accused Americans of interfering in their work. Prosecutors say the 1988 Anfal -- Spoils of War -- campaign against Kurds, which included widespread use of chemical weapons, killed more than 180,000 people and destroyed hundreds of villages. Saddam and one other defendant face the most serious charge of genocide. Chief prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon told Reuters on Sunday (November 26) that he had an audiotape and documents proving Saddam himself ordered the gassing in northern Iraq. The trail resumed amid escalating violence in Baghdad and the Baquba province. Saboteurs blew up two domestic Iraqi pipelines early on Monday (November 27), the latest in a series of attacks that have crippled refineries and helped create fuel shortages. A bomb went off under a section of a pipeline near the town of the Youssifiya, in an area called the triangle of death. The triangle, formed by the cities of Youssifiya to the northwest, Latifiyah to the south and Mahmoudiya to the east, holds the fastest routes from Baghdad southward to the Shiite shrines in Najaf and Karbala. Meanwhile in Baquba, bodies of ten men, showing signs of torture and with shots in the head have been brought to Baquba hospital, police sources said. They said that the bodies were dumped in different areas of the volatile town of Baquba. On Sunday (November 26) police in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, found the bodies of 25 people, including seven teenagers blindfolded and each with a single gunshot wound to the head, in various parts of Baquba in the past 24 hours, police said. Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, is a mixed Sunni and Shi'ite town that has seen frequent attacks by insurgents Gunmen also stormed a police station in a town north of Baghdad on Sunday (November 26). Police said that the gunmen took control of the police station in the town of Buhruz about (5 km) north of of Baquba as gunmen could be seen on the roof of the Buhruz police station waving their flag and carrying belongings of the policemen. Earlier, police said that fierce clashes erupted in the town of Baquba between gunman and the U.S. forces, giving no report on the casualties. They said that the U.S. forces attacked different areas in Baquba with air strike, no report on casualties. The three different areas were al-Tahrir, Buhruz, al-Mualemeen, al-Mafraq and Jurf al-Melih. The U.S. forces did not give an immediate report on the incident. Meanwhile, police in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, found the bodies of 25 people, including seven teenagers blindfolded and each with a single gunshot wound to the head, in various parts of Baquba in the past 24 hours, police said. Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, is a mixed Sunni and Shi'ite town that has seen frequent attacks by insurgents Iraqi police led a funeral procession through the streets of a Baghdad slum on Monday (November 27) just a day after the prime minister's motorcade was pelted with stones by fellow Shi'ites in the same district. The anger in Sadr City, stronghold of the Medhi Army Shi'ite militia, boiled over on the third day of a curfew imposed on the capital by Nuri al-Maliki's U.S.-backed national unity coalition after more than 200 people died in the deadliest attack since the U.S. invasion. Eight coffins were driven through the streets on cars and minibuses as crowds followed on foot. Police said the dead were in a U.S. airstrike which followed clashes between police and U.S. troops in the northern outskirts of Baghdad. The American military said they were checking the report. In another part of the city, bodies found in various locations around Baghdad were being retrieved from a hospital mortuary by grieving relatives. The death toll in Baghdad hit a post-war high in October at more than 3,700. Meanwhile, the pilot of an F-16 which crashed near Baghdad on Monday (November 27) appeared to have died after ejecting, television footage from the scene of the crash showed. A local journalist who shot the film said he was in no doubt the pilot was dead. The film showed the bloodied and motionless body of what appeared to be a man in a flight suit wearing a parachute harness lying in a field strewn with the wreckage of the plane. Residents in the Falluja area, in Iraq's western province of Anbar, said the crash site had been surrounded by U.S. troops. "A United States Air Force F-16CG engaged in support of coalition ground combat operations crashed approximately 20 miles northwest of Baghdad today at about 1:35 p.m. Baghdad time (1035 GMT) with one pilot on board," a U.S. statement said. "A board will be convened to investigate the incident." While helicopter crashes in Iraq are not uncommon, it is rare for a fixed-wing aircraft to come down.

ITN Source | November 28, 2006

Tags:. .erupted. .unity. .lying. .imposed. .hussein