Saddam claims Americans beat, tortured him
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-22 16:25

After sitting quietly through several hours of testimony, Saddam launched into an extended monologue, saying he'd been beaten "everywhere on my body. The marks are still there." He did not display any marks.

"I want to say here, yes, we have been beaten by the Americans and we have been tortured," Saddam told the court before gesturing toward his seven co-defendants, "one by one."

With the trial televised across Iraq, his claims of torture at the hands of U.S. troops may resonate with Iraqis who have been shocked by the abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, a scandal which led to the convictions of nine Army reservists. More recently, U.S. troops discovered abused prisoners at secret detention centers run by the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

Saddam had been defiant and combative during previous sessions of the trial, often trying to dominate the courtroom. He and his half brother Barazan Ibrahim, who was head of the Iraqi intelligence during the Dujail crackdown, have used the procedures to protest their own conditions in detention.

The ousted president had refused to attend the previous session on Dec. 7. "I will not come to an unjust court! Go to hell!" he said in an outburst in court the day before.

Earlier Wednesday before his accusations of torture, Saddam's behavior had been calmer, and he appeared clean-shaven and in fresh clothes, wearing a dark suit but no tie. On some previous occasions during the trial, Saddam appeared disheveled and complained about being held in unsanitary conditions.

Saddam stood in the fenced-in defendant's area and occasionally jabbed his finger toward the judge and prosecutor during his discourse Wednesday. He tried to refute witness statements and complained at length about the conditions of his detention, engaging in a debate with the chief prosecutor. Some of the exchange was edited out of the television broadcast.

Saddam also told the court that he knew the name of the person who betrayed his hiding place when U.S. forces found him in December 2003.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called it "highly ironic" that Saddam would accuse his jailers of mistreatment.