Special report: Trial of Saddam Hussein

    BAGHDAD, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Trial of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on charges including genocide against Kurds resumed in a Baghdad court on Tuesday.

    The ousted leader was in the dock with his six codefendants. The trial of Saddam and his six top commanders for their alleged roles in the anti-Kurdish Anfal campaign in the late 1980s started on Monday.

    Saddam's co-accused include his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, popularly known as "Chemical Ali" for allegedly ordering poison gas attacks against Kurds.

    The defendants are all charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Saddam and al-Majid also face the graver charge of genocide.

    If convicted, Saddam might face death penalty. At the beginning of Tuesday's session, one of the defendants, former defense minister Sultan Hashim Ahmad, claimed that the Anfal campaign in 1987-1988 only targeted Iranian troops and Kurdish rebels instead of Kurdish civilians.

    Ahmad, who was also commander of Task Force Anfal and head of the Iraqi Army 1st Corps, said, "The goal was to fight an organized, armed army ... The goal was not civilians. "The first batch of witnesses including survivors of the Anfal campaign are expected to testify against Saddam and his co-accused in the court later.

    During Monday's session, Saddam and Majid refused to enter a plea and Chief Judge Abdullah al-Amiri, a Shiite, then entered a plea of not guilty on behalf of them.

    Many Kurdish villages were razed and some 100,000 Kurds were reportedly killed in the campaign code-named Anfal which means "Spoil of War."

    It is the second trial Saddam is standing.

    The former Iraqi leader and seven others have been on a separate trial for allegedly killing 148 Shiites in the village of Dujail following a failed assassination attempt against Saddam near the village in 1982.

    A verdict for the Dujail case is expected in October. Saddam will also face death penalty by hanging if found guilty in the case. Enditem

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Saddam dismisses "court of occupation"

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein faces a fresh trial on Aug. 21, 2006 for alleged genocide against Iraq's Kurds.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery >>>

    BEIJING, Aug. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein refused to enter a plea on genocide charges and dismissed the tribunal as "a court of occupation," as his second trial began Monday in Baghdad.

    For most of the five-hour session, Saddam sat stone-faced in a courtroom in the fortified Green Zone of Baghdad, listening to prosecutors give a detailed account of how he and six co-defendants embarked on an eight-stage military campaign in 1988 to eliminate the Kurds from swaths of their mountainous homeland in northern Iraq, according to New York Times.

    Saddam marched into the wood-railed defendants' pen at 11:45 a.m. local time, wearing a charcoal suit and white shirt.

    At the start of the trial, chief judge, Abdullah al-Amiri asked each defendant to state his name, occupation and place of residence.  Full story <<<