Saddam refutes testimonies of U.S. experts on mass graves[Saddam's Fate]
www.chinaview.cn 2006-11-30 22:23:04

Special report: Saddam Hussein's Fate

Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein addresses the court during his trial inside the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad Nov. 7, 2006. Saddam was back in court on Tuesday for the first time since he was sentenced to hang for crimes against humanity, facing separate charges of genocide of the Kurds.

Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein addresses the court during his trial inside the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad Nov. 7, 2006. Saddam was back in court on Tuesday for the first time since he was sentenced to hang for crimes against humanity, facing separate charges of genocide of the Kurds. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
Photo Gallery >>>

    BAGHDAD, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- The ousted leader Saddam Hussein Thursday refuted the testimonies of U.S. experts over mass graves of Kurdish minority during the Operation Anfal in 1987-1988.

    Saddam made the refusal when the trial of the former Iraqi president and his six codefendants on genocide charges against Iraqi Kurdish minority in 1980s resumed in a Baghdad court.

    "These slides of the mass graves is irrelevant to the Anfal case," Saddam told the court, adding "I refute all the testimonies submitted by the Americans in this court."

    He, however, expressed that experts from countries out of the U.S.-led coalition, which invaded Iraq, could be accepted for the court credibility.

    On Thursday's session, the court heard a fourth American forensics expert, Michael Trimble of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who submitted evidences about how he found the remains of hundreds of Kurdish women and children in three mass graves in northern and southern Iraq discovered since march 2003.

    He said that in one of his excavations in a mass grave in northern Nineveh, he found a woman and her baby among bodies of 25women and 89 children, some of them were blindfolded and were shot with a bullet in the back of their heads.

    Up to 301 corpses were found in the mass graves, including 183Kurdish children killed during late 1980s, Trimble said. "In all these graves, 90 percent of the children are less than13 years of age," he said.

    Chief Judge Ureibi ordered the trial be adjourned until Monday. If convicted in the trial of Operation Anfal, Saddam could get his second death penalty following the first one he got from the trial of Dujail.

Editor: Mu Xuequan
E-mail Us  
Related Stories
Saddam trial resumes, defense lawyer arrested
Saddam trial for genocide against Kurds adjourned till Tuesday
More than 40 killed in Baghdad days after curfew lifted[Iraq][Saddam's Fate]
Saddam urges Iraqi reconciliation
Saddam appears for genocidal trial after death sentence