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Saddam's half-brother testifies at trial
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-15 18:53

Saddam Hussein's half-brother, former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim, denied he took part in a crackdown against Shiites in the 1980s as he testified Wednesday for the first time in the trial of the former Iraqi leader and members of his regime.


Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half-brother and Iraq's former intelligence chief, testifies during his trial in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, March 15, 2006. Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants including Ibrahim are on trial for torture, illegal arrests and the killing of nearly 150 people from Dujail after a 1982 assassination attempt on Saddam in the town. [AP]

Ibrahim is the latest of the eight defendants in the trial to undergo direct questioning by the judge and chief prosecutor. Saddam was expected to testify later Wednesday.

The former Iraqi leader and his regime officials are charged with killing 148 Shiites and imprisoning and torturing hundreds of others after an attempt on Saddam's life in their village of Dujail in 1982. They face possible execution by hanging if convicted.

In previous sessions, Dujail residents have testified that Ibrahim took part in torturing them during their confinement at the Baghdad headquarters of the Mukhabarat intelligence agency, which Ibrahim headed. One woman claimed Ibrahim kicked her in the chest while she was hanging upside-down and naked.

Ibrahim, wearing a traditional red scarf on his head, told chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman that he was in Dujail on the day of the July 8, 1982 shooting attack on Saddam's motorcade and the following day but has not visited the Shiite village since then.

He said the General Security agency handled the investigation into the shooting, not Mukhabarat. He claimed he ordered the release of Dujail residents who had been detained. "I chided the security and party officials for detaining those people," he said "I shook their (the released detainees') hands and let them go."

"I didn't order any detentions. I didn't interrogate anyone," he said, adding that he resigned from his post as head of the Mukhabarat in August 1983.
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