Signatures on documents linking Saddam Hussein and six of his co-accused to the killings of 148 Shiites in the 1980s match those of the former Iraqi president, the court heard on Monday.
The prosecution had demanded the court commission a team of experts to examine documents and authenticate the signatures and handwriting of the defendants facing charges of crimes against humanity in the deaths of 148 Shiites in Dujail in 1982.
“The signatures and margins stipulated in the documents match the signature of Saddam Hussein on presidential decrees,” said the experts’ report read out at the trial in Baghdad’s Green Zone.
Saddam and his half brother Barzan al-Tikriti have refused to give the court samples of their writing. On Monday Barzan stood up in court in his white robe and traditional Arabic checkered headdress and rejected the report.
He pointed to the movie “Catch Me If You Can” with Leonardo DiCaprio, which dramatizes the true story of a teenaged con man who stole more than $2.5 million, as an example of how easy it would be to forge a signature, including his.
“Why didn’t the investigator show us the original copy of this evidence. ... It’s presented in front of hundreds of millions to try and stain our reputation,” said Barzan, a former Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and once one of the most feared men in Iraq.
“I have my reservations about the accusations that the signatures and handwriting is real.”
Defense lawyers demanded 45 days to study the new evidence before commenting. The trial was adjourned until May 15 to give the defence time to present their witnesses in the next session.
The 148 Shiite men and teenagers were killed or executed after an attempt on Saddam’s life in 1982.
Personal interrogation
Television footage of that day showed Saddam in a military uniform getting out of his armored car and personally interrogating nervous Iraqis about the assassination attempt.
Saddam and his seven co-defendants could face death by hanging if found guilty.
Saddam and Barzan have said there was no crime in prosecuting the Dujail Shiites because they were accused of trying to kill the former leader.
On Monday, Saddam sat in court in a dark suit and white shirt in a metal pen with is co-defendants, unusually quiet for a man who has dominated the proceedings with tirades calling for Iraqis to revolt against U.S. occupation.
He left the talking to Barzan, who dismissed the prosecution evidence as an attempt to ruin the reputations of the accused, who include former Iraqi vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan.
Saddam could soon face a new trial on charges of genocide against the Kurds in the late 1980s in the Anfal campaign, in which Kurdish authorities say about 100,000 were killed or disappeared and many villages were destroyed.
Prosecutors had hoped for a quick sentence in the Dujail case because it is far simpler than others such as genocide against the Kurds and charges of crimes against humanity in the suppression of Shiite uprisings.
