BAGHDAD, Jan 29: The first witness to testify in Saddam Hussein’s case demanded of the former president and members of his regime to hand over bodies of her relatives tortured during the Dujail massacre, as the trial against the former military dictator on crimes against humanity resumed on Sunday.

“I request their bodies. Where are they now?,” asked the unidentified witness from behind a beige courtroom curtain, after judge Rauf Rashid Abdel Rahman asked her what she wanted from the defendants.

“I don’t want compensation, I want to find the bodies of the boys. They didn’t hand over the bodies,” she said referring to some of her relatives from Dujail who were allegedly tortured and subsequently disappeared in 1982.

Saddam and seven others are currently on trial for mass execution of 148 Shias from the southern town of Dujail where the former dictator had escaped an assassination bid. Saddam and others face the death penalty if convicted.

The witness said her husband, who was a non-commissioned officer in Saddam’s army, was tortured to death and that she was arrested.

“We stayed for a few months in Abu Ghraib prison and we saw young people being beaten in front of us,” she told the court.

“They (guards) kept us every day standing on one foot and they tortured us. My relatives were all tortured in front of us. They said there should be no noise but how do you make no noise with children with you?,” she asked.

Referring to a two-year-old girl who was with her at that time, she said: “When the baby was crying he (the guard) pulled her out of my hands and put her in solitary confinement, I swear to God.”

She said she was later taken to a desert prison.

The witness said she also saw girls handcuffed and blindfolded who were brought in the prison and tortured with electric shocks and beaten.

“Twenty-five girls were tortured with electric shocks and beaten with cables, the signs of the torture showed on their bodies. I know this because I used to sit next to them and gave them water,” she told the judge.

As she was speaking, one of the defendants, Ali Daeh Ali got up and asked her through the judge what was her complaint against him.

She replied saying he was in the Baath party and that he came with the party’s militia to arrest her and her family.

“The charge is baseless; I have arrested no Dujail families,” countered Ali.

“I have no connections with security. I am not involved with any of these incidents.”

Another defendant, Mezhar Abdullah Ruweid, asked her why she was asking for compensation from him.

“When I opened the door, he pushed the door. He came to my house with the security and he is a party and militia member,” she said.

Ruweid denied her charges and said he had personal relations with most of the Dujail families.

“I never expected these statements, there are personal relationships here. This is my town, my city, my family, my people. I did not abuse anyone,” Ruweid told the court.

Another female witness said children were also not spared.

“I saw things I couldn’t believe. I saw a little blind girl and they tortured her in front of my eyes,” she said.—AFP

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