2008 Woodie Awards
Saddam calls for forgiveness
John Ward Anderson-The Washington Post
Issue date: 11/9/06 Section: nation/world
- Page 1 of 2 next >
A subdued Saddam Hussein returned to his Kurdish genocide trial in Baghdad on Tuesday, two days after another court sentenced him to death for war crimes, and in an unusually conciliatory moment called for the people of war-torn Iraq to forgive each other. Saddam, 69, was sentenced on Sunday to hang for the killings of 148 Shiite men and boys from the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad, in 1982. The sentence, which sparked a long, vitriolic outburst from Saddam, is being appealed while the former dictator continues to stand trial in another case involving the deaths of as many as 100,000 Kurds, many in poison gas attacks, in the so-called Anfal campaign in 1987-88. Saddam, in his trademark, ill-fitting charcoal gray suit and open-collared white shirt, took an active roll in his trial Tuesday, minus the theatrical bluster and tirades that have marked many of his other court appearances.
After one witness testified that Saddam had said all Kurds were saboteurs, he raised a finger to ask a question.
That question prompted a five-minute back-and-forth between the judge and the witness about the veracity of the charge, when attention finally returned to Saddam, who explained how Jesus and the prophet Muhammad had believed in forgiveness.
"I call on all Iraqis, Arabs and Kurds, to forgive, reconcile and make up," he said.
The former Iraqi leader also occasionally challenged a witness from a small village in Dahuk province, in the extreme north of Iraq on the border with Turkey, who described living in a cave during the Anfal campaign and surrendering to Iraqi soldiers after hearing that an amnesty had been declared. The soldiers separated the townspeople by age and sex, then led a group of 37 men into the woods and shot them repeatedly, he said.
"I was standing then. There were 16 soldiers facing us with two lieutenants," said Qahar Khalil Mohammed, a farmer who now is 61. "One of the lieutenants said 'sit down,' and immediately the other one said 'shoot.' The soldiers all fired on us, and we collapsed on the ground."
After one witness testified that Saddam had said all Kurds were saboteurs, he raised a finger to ask a question.
That question prompted a five-minute back-and-forth between the judge and the witness about the veracity of the charge, when attention finally returned to Saddam, who explained how Jesus and the prophet Muhammad had believed in forgiveness.
"I call on all Iraqis, Arabs and Kurds, to forgive, reconcile and make up," he said.
The former Iraqi leader also occasionally challenged a witness from a small village in Dahuk province, in the extreme north of Iraq on the border with Turkey, who described living in a cave during the Anfal campaign and surrendering to Iraqi soldiers after hearing that an amnesty had been declared. The soldiers separated the townspeople by age and sex, then led a group of 37 men into the woods and shot them repeatedly, he said.
"I was standing then. There were 16 soldiers facing us with two lieutenants," said Qahar Khalil Mohammed, a farmer who now is 61. "One of the lieutenants said 'sit down,' and immediately the other one said 'shoot.' The soldiers all fired on us, and we collapsed on the ground."