BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein returned to court Tuesday for his genocide
trial, two days after another panel convicted him of crimes against humanity and
sentenced him to hang.
![](xin_10110307164575024871.jpg) A man holds up a framed image of deposed Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein as they protest his death sentence verdict in Fallujah, 65
kilometers (40 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday Nov. 6, 2006. About
150 people marched through Fallujah, a former stronghold of the Sunni
insurgency 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of Baghdad, denouncing the
verdict and shouting: 'We sacrifice our souls for you Saddam.' [AP]
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Saddam, wearing a black suit and
white shirt, found his way quietly to his seat among the other six defendants
charged in the Operation Anfal crackdown against Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s.
The chief judge then convened the session and called the first witness, Qahar
Khalil Mohammed.
On Sunday, another five-judge panel convicted Saddam in the deaths of nearly
150 Shi'ite Muslims following a 1982 assassination attempt against him in the
town of Dujail in 1982.
He and two others were sentenced to death by hanging. Four co-defendants
received lesser sentences and one was acquitted.
The Anfal trial will continue while an appeal in the Dujail case is under
way.
On Monday, the chief prosecutor in the Dujail case said a nine-judge appeals
panel was expected to rule on Saddam's guilty verdict and death sentence by the
middle of January. That could set in motion a possible execution by
mid-February.
Iraqi authorities imposed a lockdown on Baghdad and surrounding provinces in
anticipation of the Sunday verdict. Those measures were lifted Monday after a
feared surge in violence failed to materialize, although there were pro-Saddam
rallies throughout Sunni Muslim areas of the country.
If the appeals court upholds the sentences, all three members of the
Presidential Council - President Jalal Talabani and Vice Presidents Tariq
al-Hashimi and Adil Abdul-Mahdi - must sign death warrants before
executions can be carried out.
Talabani said Monday that although he opposes capital punishment, his
signature is not needed to carry out Saddam's death sentence. Talabani, a Kurd,
has permanently authorized Abdul-Mahdi, a Shi'ite, to sign on his behalf.
Abdul-Mahdi has said he would sign Saddam's death warrant, meaning two of three
signatures were assured.
Al-Hashimi, the other vice president and a Sunni, gave his word that he also
would sign a Saddam death sentence as part of the deal under which he got the
job April 22, according to witnesses at the meeting, which was attended by US
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.
"We wanted a written promise before the first meeting of the new parliament.
But later and during a meeting in the presence of American and British
ambassadors and other politicians, the promise became oral in which he vowed not
to oppose important rules and laws - especially those related to Saddam," Deputy
Parliament Speaker Khaled al-Attiyah told the AP.