IRAQ : Violence continues in Baghdad as trial of six former Iraqi officials resumes.

Sectarian violence continues in Baghdad, while the chair once occupied by Saddam Hussein in court stood empty as the trial of six former Iraqi officials accused of trying to wipe out ethnic Kurds resumed. A roadside bomb planted inside a minibus went off in the in al-Zafaraniya neighbourhood, southeastern Baghdad on Monday (January 8), killing three civilians and wounding two others, police said. Earlier, gunmen ambushed a bus carrying dozens of cleaners and other workers from a Shi'ite Muslim district in Baghdad to the city's airport, killing at least 15 people and wounding 15 others, a hospital source said. An Interior Ministry source said initial reports were of four dead and nine wounded, but the toll could rise. "A gunman opened fire in front of me. There were checkpoints and cars beside us but they did not do anything. Especially, the Iraqi army, they did not do anything for us," said Ali, a wounded man. The Transport Ministry, which controls the airport, is run by supporters of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia is blamed by Washington and Sunni Arabs for operating death squads. Hundreds of people are killed every week in sectarian attacks, and buses carrying workers have frequently been targeted by kidnappers and gunmen. Sectarian tension has been heightened by the hanging of Saddam Hussein at the end of last year and by an illicitly filmed video showing the Sunni Arab former president being taunted by followers of Sadr. Security sources say the main road to the airport, which also houses the main U.S. military base in Baghdad, has seen a rise in insurgent activity in recent days. It used to be among the most dangerous routes in Baghdad but a crackdown by U.S. and Iraqi forces over the past year had cut the number of attacks. In the al-Dourra neighbourhood of southern Baghdad, gunmen killed all six members of a Shi'ite family while they were packing their furniture to move, an Interior Ministry source said. Nine days after Saddam Hussein was hanged for crimes against humanity for killing Shi'ites, the former president's cousin "Chemical Ali" Hassan al-Majeed and five other Baath party officials were back in the dock. Judge Mohammed al-Ureybi, in his first order of business, formally dropped charges of genocide and crimes against humanity against Saddam. "(We have here the papers) that showed the carrying out of execution of defendant Saddam Hussein. In virtue of confirmation of the death of defendant Saddam Hussein. The court has decided to finally stop all the legal procedures against defendant Saddam Hussein according to the Iraqi penal procedures law," Judge al-Ureybi said. Hassan al-Majeed, who faces genocide charges, is considered the main enforcer of Anfal, or Spoils of War, a 1988 military campaign against ethnic Kurds in which prosecutors say 180,000 people were killed, many of them gassed. Following days of controversy over Saddam's last minutes and the sectarian taunts he faced from Shi'ite officials on the gallows that were filmed by a clandestine video that has embarrassed the government, Monday's proceedings marked a return to more standard legal proceedings. Prosecutors presented documents they said linked Majeed and other defendants to Anfal. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has mounted a robust defence of the execution. His government has yet to complete an investigation into the video, which has inflamed sectarian passions in a country on the brink of civil war. Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government has found itself on the receiving end of one of the first public appeals by the new United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, whose chief of staff has written to Baghdad urging "restraint" in the use of the death penalty. Impressions Maliki rushed the hanging through in haste ahead of the New Year, at the start of a Muslim holiday, were reinforced on Sunday when lawyers and an official said two of Saddam's aides, now on death row, were meant to hang with him but were spared at the last minute for "logistical" reasons. Saddam's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and former judge Awad al-Bander were moved to a special wing at the U.S. military jail and told to write their wills at the same time as Saddam in time for an execution at dawn on Dec. 30, their lawyers said. They are likely to hang any day now, though no date is set.

ITN Source | January 8, 2007

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