Saddam: 'Down With Bush'

Stormy Session As Trial Of Former Dictator, Co-Defendants Resumes

(CBS/AP)  Another document the prosecutors produced was a 1987 memo from the presidential office's legal department saying two people sentenced to death in connection with Dujail had not been executed and suggesting those responsible for the "negligence" be investigated.

A note written in the margin, allegedly in Saddam's handwriting, approved the investigation but says the two people should be spared execution "because we cannot allow coincidence to be more compassionate than us."

Saddam and his seven co-defendants are on trial in the killing of nearly 150 Shiite Muslims in Dujail north of Baghdad. If convicted, they could face the death penalty by hanging.

Abdel-Rahman pressed ahead with the session after a raucous start resulting from his decision to force Saddam, his half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and the six other co-defendants to attend the session.

Monday's session — the first in 11 days — opened with chants against President Bush, shouting matches, arguments and insults from Saddam and Ibrahim.

Even their dress signaled their defiance at being in the court. Ibrahim wore a white T-shirt, his head bare without the Arab headdress he insisted on wearing in past sessions as a mark of dignity. Saddam carried a Quran and wore a blue galabeya — a traditional Arab robe — with a black overcoat, a stark contrast to the tailored black suits he has worn to past sessions.

"Why have you brought us with force?" Saddam shouted at Abdel-Rahman. "Your authority gives you the right to try a defendant in absentia. Are you trying to overcome your own smallness?"

"The law will be implemented," Abdel-Rahman replied.

"Degradation and shame upon you, Raouf," Saddam yelled. Later, he called the investigating judges "homosexuals."

Ibrahim, shouting angrily, struggled with guards who led him into the courtroom by his arms. He argued with the judge, who ordered him to sit.

But Ibrahim, Saddam's former intelligence chief, refused and sat on the floor with his back to the judge. He remained there until al-Samarrai took the stand, when Ibrahim got back in his chair to see.

Abdel-Rahman took over as chief judge last month, taking a tough stance to impose order after his predecessor resigned amid criticism over tumultuous proceedings marked by frequent, profane outbursts by Saddam and Ibrahim.

The defense team walked out Jan. 29 after Abdel-Rahman threw one of their colleagues out of the courtroom. Saddam and three co-defendants were allowed to leave or were forcibly removed, and the judge appointed replacements for the defense lawyers.

In the following session Feb. 1, only three defendants attended. None showed up the next day and Saddam's lawyers have said they will continue to boycott the trial as long as Abdel-Rahman is on the bench.

The defense claims that Abdel-Rahman is unfit to try the case because he was sentenced to life in absentia in the 1970s for subversive activity. Saddam became president in 1979, but was Iraq's most powerful man for several years before that.