Friday, December 23, 2005
Hussein Trial
From the San Francisco Chronicle story:
One, who said he had been 8 years old in 1982, recounted how his father, three uncles and grandmother were detained following the assassination attempt. Only his grandmother returned, he said. The others were executed.
"I request blood for my blood," he said.
The second witness, who was 14 at the time, said he had been home during Hussein's visit to Dujail. About three weeks later, security officials came to his house and arrested him and his family. At the first jail they were taken to, relatives had been so badly abused that they were unrecognizable.
"Their faces were yellow, and there was a very foul smell," he said, describing the crowded detention facility. "I was terrified."
He said he saw one prisoner who had plastic melted onto his body, and another who had to kneel because the skin on his back had been peeled away.
The witness and his mother were transferred to Abu Ghraib and later to a prison camp in the desert. At Abu Ghraib, he said, guards forced boys and men to crawl on the floor as they hit them with cables in front of their screaming wives and mothers. Children and teenagers died in the prison from malnutrition and untreated ailments, he said.
The witness said he and his mother had been detained for four years. His 70-year-old father and 17-year-old brother never returned from Abu Ghraib. He later received a death certificate for them, showing they had been executed, he said.
In cross-examination, defense attorney Najib Nueimi, a former Qatari justice minister, tried to make a distinction between officials on the ground and Hussein's political leadership, who he claimed had no responsibility for the abuse. He asked whether the witness or his family had filed complaints with Hussein's government after their release.
"Who am I going to file a complaint with?" the witness replied. "We could not say a word."
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