World

Saddam's Handwriting

April 19, 2006 / 8:26 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Handwriting experts authenticated Saddam Hussein's signatures on more documents related to a crackdown on Shiites in the 1980s, the chief judge in his trial said Wednesday. Among the documents was apparently an order approving death sentences for 148 Shiites.

Saddam and his seven co-defendants were in the courtroom in the latest session of the trial Wednesday, as chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman read a report by handwriting experts on two documents said to be signed by Saddam.

The experts confirmed the signatures were the former Iraqi leader's, Abdel-Rahman said.

The experts' report did not give details on the documents, but one of them was dated June 16, 1984. That is the same date of a memo approving the death sentences of the Shiites, presented by prosecutors earlier in the six-month-old trial.

In other recent developments:

Still no progress on forming a new government for Iraq. The parliament was supposed to meet Monday, reports CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier, but that was delayed again, while the different political parties had another go-round at trying to compromise on a new government.

The body of the brother of one of Iraq's hard-line Sunni politicians turned up at Baghdad's morgue, three weeks after the man was kidnapped. Taha al-Mutlaq, brother of Saleh al-Mutlaq – a politician who is a major player in the political talks to form a new government – had disappeared nearly three weeks ago while traveling to Salahuddin province to the north. It is the second time in the past week that the brother of a major Sunni politician has died violently.

A car bomb exploded Tuesday in front of a U.S. observation post in Ramadi, sending up a huge fireball and damaging buildings and cars on a main road. There were no reports of U.S. casualties. The bombing was part of a coordinated attack by insurgents who fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at several sites occupied by U.S. Marines in the center of the city, which is 70 miles west of Baghdad.

In Baghdad Monday, experts at the trial of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said they had authenticated Saddam's signature on a 1982 memo approving rewards for six intelligence agents involved in the crackdown. They also said signatures on other documents were those of co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim, the former head of the Mukhabarat intelligence agency.

Saddam had refused to confirm or deny his signatures on the documents. Ibrahim and some of the other co-defendants had claimed that their alleged signatures were forged.

The 148 Shiites were tried in 1984 before Saddam's Revolutionary Court for alleged involvement in the assassination attempt and sentenced to death. The defense has argued that the crackdown in Dujail was legal because it was in response to the shooting attack on Saddam.

The prosecution has sought to show that the crackdown went far beyond the perpetrators of the assassination atttempt, with entire families — including women and children — arrested in the sweep that followed. It says the 148 sentenced to death included minors as young as 11 years old.

Chief defense lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi repeated his demand that an international team of experts be called in to exanmine the documents.

The current team "lacks the experience and appropriate meanbs to examine the handwriting," he said.

Ibrahim denounced the experts' report as a "script directed by (chief prosecutor) Jaafar al-Moussawi to give credibility" to the case.

"The general prosecution is obviously biased and wants to use everything to convict us," Ibrahim said. "I demand a non-biased and non-Iraqi committee (of handwriting experts) because there is a crisis in trust between us."

"I'm not afraid of the punishment but I'm afraid of my reputation being defamed," he said. "Why should I kill 148 people?... Al-Dujail's people are our family and part of our country. They know exactly who arrested them and who razed their farms. If you want to put it on my head, then show the proof."

The prosecution is wrapping up its case against Saddam and the former officials from his regime, and the defense is expected to begin its arguments in upcoming sessions.

Abdel-Rahman on Wednesday approved lists of witnesses that defense lawyers for three of the defendants — Abdullah al-Ruwayyid, his son Mizhar al-Ruwayyid and Mohammed al-Azzawi — plan to bring to the stand. The judge called on the lawyers of the other defendants to present their own witness lists.

Saddam and the seven former members of his regime are on trial for the deaths of 148 Shiites and the imprisonment and torture of others after a 1982 assassination attempt against the former Iraqi leader in the Shiite town of Dujail. The defendants face possible execution by hanging if convicted.