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Saddam trial judge Amin plans to quit
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-01-14 11:19

After several hearings late last month, Amin was criticized by some observers for allowing Saddam to speak at length, making allegations, including of his maltreatment at American hands.

The judge, whose dry wit and courteous manner have been features of the trial since its first day, has rejected the criticism and insisted the defense should have a fair hearing.

HELICOPTER DOWNED

Rebels in northern Iraq apparently shot down an armed U.S. reconnaissance helicopter, killing its two pilots, in a rare instance of American air power being challenged by guerrillas.

"The indicators are that it was due to hostile fire," said Lieutenant General John Vines, the deputy U.S. commander in Iraq. Witnesses at the scene in the city of Mosul said they saw fighters fire on the two-seater aircraft with heavy machineguns.

Six days earlier, all 12 people aboard were killed when a Black Hawk helicopter went down close to the nearby northern city of Tal Afar, though that has so far been blamed on weather.

Vines warned that violence may increase once the results of last month's parliamentary election are announced next week.

Many minority Sunni Arabs, whose community has fostered the insurgency, have complained of fraud in the December 15 vote, and an informal truce to encourage Sunnis to vote after their boycott of a previous poll last January has been widely broken.

An almost final tally of parliamentary seats, obtained by Reuters, confirmed that Sunni parties will have about a fifth of the seats in the 275-member chamber, while the dominant Shi'ite Islamist Alliance will fall only a few seats short of retaining the slim absolute majority it currently enjoys.

With six seats yet to be allocated, the Alliance and their present Kurdish coalition partners were also one seat short of the two-thirds majority needed to change the constitution, figures provided by a source at the Electoral Commission showed.
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