Hussein tests trial judge's control

The often disorderly trial of Saddam Hussein continued Wednesday - without the former president present - sharpening questions about who's in charge after five days of proceedings.

Some observers wonder whether the judicial process is being usurped in a power struggle between Iraq's deposed leader and the court. "His strategy is to derail the trial, and if he can't do that, disrupt the trial, and if he can't do that, discredit the trial," says Michael Scharf, director of the International Law Center at Case Western University in Cleveland.

Mr. Hussein made good on a threat Tuesday not to return to the "unjust" court Wednesday. The trial was adjourned until Dec. 21.

Mr. Scharf, who helped train the Iraqi judges, says the biggest problem has been to allow Hussein to effectively act as his own lawyer. Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, acting as his own council, turned his trial at The Hague into a virtual circus, using cross-examinations for political propaganda and to attack the legitimacy of the court.

Early on, Scharf and others agreed the Hussein trial would follow that same path if the defendants acted as counsel. Their decision led to a law that banned self- representation.

But Hussein and the other seven defendants have been allowed by Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin to cross-examine witnesses with predictable consequences.

"It's turning the story into a power struggle between Saddam and judges rather than about the compelling testimony of witnesses," he says. "The longer [Judge Amin] waits to make this correction, the greater the risk that indelible damage will be done to the court."

So far the court has heard dramatic testimony this week from witnesses from Dujail, where an attempt was made on Hussein's life in 1982. Witnesses told of torture, retribution, and ruined lives as a result of the events in the Shiite village.

On Tuesday, Hussein's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti cross-examined "Witness C," who testified that he was 12 when he was arrested in 1982. He said he was taken to Baath Party headquarters and tortured.

The witness said that he saw Mr. Tikriti, who was then Hussein's intelligence chief, at the Baath Party building in Dujail that day, and said he appeared to be in charge.

Tikriti, in an effort to discredit the witness, admitted he was there that day, but said that he was actually helping people. "Don't you remember? I was there. I kissed 60 men ... then set them free." At that time, Tikriti was in almost daily contact with Hussein.

But as the trial adjourned while Iraqis prepare for the Dec. 15 nationwide parliamentary vote, it remains unclear that any direct link has been established between the events of Dujail and Hussein.

"No one is saying Saddam Hussein personally tortured people, and you don't have to prove that," says Steven Ratner, an international law expert at the University of Michigan.

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