Prosecutor calls for removal of Saddam judge

Najiba Khundair Ahmad, 41, resident of the village of Sheikwasan in Kusrdistan, wipes her tears during the second day of the Anfal Campaign trial. Khundair presented multiple scars and declared she had miscarriages after her community was gassed in 1987.

BAGHDAD A prosecutor in Saddam Hussein's genocide trial demanded Wednesday that the judge be removed, charging that he had shown bias toward the former Iraqi dictator and had let him harangue witnesses from the dock.

Saddam is on trial for his role in the Anfal campaign of 1988, the Iraqi military's mass killing of Kurds, an ethnic minority of close to five million in northeastern Iraq.

He was tried earlier this year for his role in the executions of 148 men and boys in the Shiite village of Dujail in 1982. That verdict is not expected until next month.

During the court session Tuesday, Saddam said that the Kurdish witnesses who had described atrocities at the hands of Saddam's military were "agents of Iran and Zionism" and he said he would "crush your heads," The Associated Press reported.

He contended that Kurds were testifying against him in an effort to create strife and divide Iraq.

As the trial resumed Wednesday morning, the prosecutor, Munqith al- Faroon, asserted that the judge had "allowed the defendants to go too far, with unacceptable expressions and words."

He said the judge had let them "treat the chamber as a political forum" and had made it clear he was "against the defendants and for the prosecution."

The judge, Abdullah al-Amiri, who also was a judge in Iraq during Saddam's regime, responded coolly, not raising his voice: "The judge coordinates and makes peace among the people in his presence."

Read the rest at the International Herald Tribune

Related Link:
The 1988 Anfal Campaign at Wikipedia