Saddam opts for firing squad

Staff and agencies

Saddam Hussein declared today he would like to be executed by firing squad rather than hanged like “a common criminal” if sentenced to death at the end of his trial for genocide.

During a combative court appearance, which was his first for more than a month and came after a 17-day hunger strike that saw him taken to hospital at the weekend, the former Iraqi dictator again poured scorn on chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman and US forces inside the country.

“I ask you, being an Iraqi person, that if you reach a verdict of death, execution, remember that I am a military man and should be killed by firing squad and not by hanging as a common criminal,” Saddam said.

The judge replied that no verdict had even been reached in the trial of Saddam and seven co-defendants over the killing and torture of Shia Muslims in the town of Dujail following a 1982 assassination attempt against him.

Prosecutors in the trial, which began in October, have demanded the death penalty for Saddam and two others. Executions in Iraq are normally carried out by hanging.

Saddam, who launched his hunger strike to protest against the trial and demand better security for his defence lawyers, three of whom have been murdered, complained he had been returned to the hearing involuntarily.

“I was brought against my will directly from the hospital,” Saddam told the chief judge. “The Americans insisted that I come against my will. This is not fair.”

He then lambasted the trial as an illegal instrument of the US occupation of Iraq. As he argued with the judge, Saddam pointed a finger and said: “Not even 1,000 people like you can terrify me”.

“The invaders only understand the language of the gun. I am in prison but the knights outside will liberate the country.”

During one of Saddam’s outbursts, Mr Abdel-Rahman accused the ex-president of inciting violence against Iraqis. Saddam responded: “I am inciting the killing of Americans and invaders, not the killing of Iraqis. I am Saddam Hussein. I call Iraqis to be in harmony and work on evicting the invaders.”

After further argument - during which the former leader dismissed his trial as “not worth the urine of an Iraqi child” - the chief judge turned off Saddam’s microphone.

Such outbursts by Saddam and his co-defendants have been a regular feature of the lengthy trial, which has proceeded with sometimes agonising slowness.

The court has heard six of the eight final summations. After the final one is presented, the court will adjourn to consider a verdict, possibly in mid-August.

Saddam is due to stand trial later in August in a second case, involving the bloody crackdown on Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s. The former case was chosen first as it was considered relatively straightforward to prosecute.

The ex-dictator’s lawyers accused the US military of force-feeding him when he was taken to hospital on Sunday. US officials said he was being voluntarily fed via a tube and had drunk some sweet tea.