Saddam tells court he is protesting with hunger strike

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Saddam Hussein and three former officials in his regime told the court handling their trial Tuesday that they were on a hunger strike in protest of the judge overseeing the proceedings.\nSaddam said he had not eaten in three days, while his former intelligence chief, Barzan Ibrahim, said he had been on the strike for two days. Two other defendants, Awad Bandar and former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, also said they had started a hunger strike.\nTheir claims of a hunger strike could not be independently confirmed. The defendants are being held in U.S. detention, and U.S. officials could not immediately be reached to comment.\nInvestigative judge Raid Juhi did not deny the defendants were refusing food when asked about the strike after the day's three-hour session.\n"This is an administrative problem that the court is working to verify and it will work also to solve it ... with the responsible parties in the custodial authorities," he told reporters. "But, as you could see, the defendants are in good health."\nThe trial was adjourned until Feb. 28.\nChief judge Raouf Abdurt last month, has worked to impose order in a court where outbursts and arguments have frequently overshadowed the testimony.\nSaddam and his seven co-defendants are on trial in the killings of nearly 150 Shiite Muslims in Dujail after an assassination attempt against the former Iraqi president in 1982. If convicted, they could face the death penalty by hanging.\nAt the start of Tuesday's session, Saddam told the judge, "For three days, we have been holding a hunger strike protesting against your way of treating us -- against you and your masters."\nIbrahim, who wore only his long underwear for the second day in a row, complained that he and the other defendants had been forced to attend the proceedings against their will.\n"You brought me by force in my pajamas and I have been on a hunger strike for two days," he said.\nThe defendants refused to attend sessions last month after their defense team walked out of court. The defense lawyers have refused to participate in the trial until Abdel-Rahman is removed, accusing him of bias against Saddam.\nAbdel-Rahman appointed new defense lawyers, but Saddam and other defendants refused to accept them. On Monday, Abdel-Rahman ordered the defendants to attend the session. Saddam entered on his own, but Ibrahim had to be pulled into the court by guards who held him by the arms.\nThe prosecution continued its attempts to prove Saddam and his seven co-defendants were directly involved in the wave of arrests and executions in Dujail.\nProsecutors put three former members of Saddam's regime -- a former secretary of Saddam, a former governor and an anonymous intelligence official -- on the witness stand in three hours of testimony, before Abdel-Rahman adjourned the proceedings.\nThe prosecution displayed to the court a document dated July 21, 1982 in which the Mukhabarat, the intelligence agency headed by Ibrahim, recommended rewards for six employees for their role in the arrests.\nThe document bore a signature that the prosecution said was Ibrahim's. Below it was written the word "agreed" with what was allegedly Saddam's signature.\nOn the witness stand, Hamed Youssef Hamadi -- who was Saddam's personal secretary at the time -- was asked whose handwriting was on the memo.\n"It looks like President Saddam's," he said.\nSince the trial began, Saddam and Ibrahim have only dealt with the court with contempt, interrupting it with outbursts, arguments and insults.\nTuesday's session began in much the same way. Saddam entered and shouted his support for Iraqi insurgents, yelling "Long live the mujahedeen!" Later, during the testimony, he shouted, "I say to all Iraqis: Fight and liberate your country!"\nHe argued with Abdel-Rahman, at one point telling the judge, "Hit your own head with that gavel."\nWhen the testimony began, Ibrahim addressed the court for nearly a half-hour, giving the first lengthy account by any of the defendants about their roles in the Dujail crackdown. Ibrahim spoke from the defendants' pen, and Abdel-Rahman allowed him to speak, largely uninterrupted.\nIbrahim denied any role in the wave of arrests. He said he went to Dujail on the day that gunmen opened fire on Saddam's motorcade, then returned to the village the following day. He claimed he ordered the release of 80 detainees held at the ruling Baath Party's headquarters in the town.