Saddam Hussein was not a dictator

[Lahori paa jee]

The Shia chief judge trying Iraq’s former president Saddam Hussein on charges of genocide against the Kurds said on Thursday the deposed strongman was not a “dictator”.

The cordial exchange came after a Kurdish witness told the court how he had managed to meet Saddam to ask of the whereabouts of family members allegedly killed in the brutal “Anfal” military campaign of 1987-1988.

Seated in the dock, Saddam asked: “Why did you try to meet me when you knew I was a dictator?” The judge, Abdullah al-Ameri, then stepped in. “You were not a dictator,” he said to Saddam, and suggested it was the people close to him who had made him look like one. Saddam thanked the judge for his intervention.

The latest exchange between Saddam and the judge is expected to further upset prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon who on Wednesday demanded Ameri’s resignation, saying he was too lenient toward the defendants.

Ameri, who has 25 years experience and was also a judge under the former regime, dismissed the demand from Faroon, who charged that the judge was allowing defendants to even threaten witnesses and their lawyers.

On Tuesday, Saddam threatened one of the lawyers as he defended the struggle of the Kurdish guerrillas, or “peshmerga”-which means “those who face death” in Kurdish, — against the old regime. Saddam accused him of being an agent of “Iranians and Zionists” and threatened to “crush his head”.

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Hmmm is this an attempt to show that the judge is trying to favour Saddam Hussain so that we may have no objection to the final verdict from him at the end of trial