Hussein calls for reconciliation

BAGHDAD —  A subdued Saddam Hussein, already sentenced to hang in a war crimes trial that concluded this week, walked into a courtroom for another case Tuesday and called on warring Iraqis outside to let bygones be bygones.

“I call upon all Iraqis, Arabs and Kurds, to forgive, reconcile and shake hands,” the former dictator said, recounting how the prophet Muhammad and Jesus Christ showed forgiveness to their enemies.

But four Kurdish witnesses who appeared in court Tuesday were in no mood to reconcile with the former president. Each provided narratives describing random arrests, grueling torture, firing squads and chemical weapons during the Hussein regime’s late-1980s military operation called the Anfal, or “spoils of war.”

“I was sick. I was short of breath,” said Ismail Ahmed Ismail, a 59-year-old farmer who fled in panic from his village after it was allegedly targeted by chemical weapons. “My eyes were tearing. Many animals were also dead.”

Hussein and six codefendants face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for their alleged roles in orchestrating the Anfal campaign, in which Iraqi forces attempted to crush a Kurdish rebellion in the north by destroying rural villages suspected of harboring anti-government guerrillas.

During one period in 1988, Hussein’s government allegedly killed tens of thousands of Kurds, including women and children. Many victims were buried in mass graves after being riddled with bullets or targeted with chemical weapons.

Hussein and two of his codefendants in another trial already have been sentenced to death for crimes against humanity for their roles in targeting residents of the Shiite Muslim town of Dujayl after a 1982 assassination attempt there against the former leader. That verdict, announced Sunday, is subject to an automatic appellate review beginning within four weeks.

The defendants in the Anfal case include Hussein’s cousin Ali Hassan Majid, known as Chemical Ali for his alleged role in mustard and nerve gas attacks on Kurdish villages and towns during the late 1980s.

On Tuesday, witnesses described an Aug. 25, 1988, incident in the village of Koreme, near the northern city of Dahuk, in which three dozen Kurds were shot by firing squad. At least five survived.

Hussein, who lambasted the judge and the court during the reading of his verdict in the Dujayl case on Sunday, kept cool during Tuesday’s session. One witness described his escape from a firing squad.

“I saw 16 soldiers standing, and one of the two officers said, ‘Sit down,’ and the other said, ‘Shoot,’ ” said Qahar Khalil Mohammed, a 52-year-old wearing traditional Kurdish clothing. “As the shooting started, we fell to the ground.”

Though hurt, he managed to drag two surviving victims to a cave, where they spent more than a week recovering from their wounds.

When the men returned to Koreme, they were told that an amnesty had been declared for those who turned themselves in. But Mohammed said they were rearrested and tortured when they surrendered. One officer stuck a screwdriver into the wounds of one victim.

They were loaded onto trucks and hauled to a squalid camp near the Kurdish city of Irbil, where many women and children died, he said.

Mohammed was freed when northern Iraq became a semiautonomous Kurdish region after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Hussein stood to complain that witness testimony was not supported by other evidence.

“These two officers [who led the firing squad], what are their names?” he demanded of one witness. “All the complainants took us on a tour, but there is no one to check.... Who supports his claim? Nobody. No one.”

Hussein’s privately retained lawyers continued to boycott the courtroom. They have refused to attend the Anfal trial, arguing that Judge Mohammed Orabi Khalefa was predisposed against the defense. Court-appointed lawyers have taken their place.

The trial resumes today.

*

daragahi@latimes.com