Saddam tells judge he will stop attending genocide trial

AMMAN, Jordan -- Saddam Hussein wrote the chief judge in his Kurdish genocide trial to tell him that he no longer wants to attend the hearings -- whatever the consequences, according to a letter released Tuesday by former Iraqi leader's lawyers.\nIn a handwritten Arabic statement made available to The Associated Press, Saddam cited what he claimed were repeated "insults" by Chief Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa and prosecutors trying him for his role in the 1987-88 military campaign, code-named Operation Anfal.\n"I wasn't given the chance to speak when I tried to clarify the truth," Saddam wrote in the one-page letter dated Monday. He said he wanted to respond to the prosecution's allegation that he had stashed away $10 billion.\nIn Monday's hearing, an unnamed prosecutor asked al-Oreibi to freeze the $10 billion, saying it belonged to the former regime and had been deposited in foreign bank accounts. "We ask the court to put its hand on the money to secure the rights of the victims," the prosecutor said.\nThe judge did not respond, and the hearing adjourned until Wednesday.\nThe authenticity of Saddam's letter, sent out by his lawyers, could not immediately be verified. But it used language similar to what Saddam had often used in other statements, as well as in his courtroom speeches.\nThat included his use of the title: "President of the republic and the commander in chief of the Mujahedeen (holy warriors) armed forces" -- the phrase he used to end Tuesday's letter.\nElsewhere in the letter, he wrote: "I feel disgusted. ... I will not accept being offended continuously by you and others."\nHe goes on to say: "Saddam, who taught pride and dignity to many people, refuses to attend (the trial) and be subjected to insult by agents and their followers ... Therefore, I ask to be relieved from attending the (court) hearings in this new comedy and you can do whatever you want," he wrote.\nSaddam and six co-defendants face the possibility of execution if convicted for Operation Anfal. The prosecution estimates that 180,000 Kurds were killed when Saddam's army allegedly destroyed hundreds of villages, killing or making homeless their residents, in a scorched earth campaign against separatist guerrillas in Iraq's northern Kurdish area.\nOn Nov. 5, Saddam was convicted in a separate trial in the slaying of 148 Shiite Muslims, including children, following an assassination attempt against him in the Iraqi town of Dujail in 1982. He was sentenced to death by hanging.\nA lawyer for Saddam said Tuesday he had appealed to an American court in an attempt to win a stay of execution in the Dujail case, arguing that the deposed leader's rights had been violated by American troops.\nBut a U.S. district court judge in the District of Columbia rejected the request because the Italian lawyer is not a member of the D.C. bar.\nIf an Iraqi appeals court upholds the death sentence, Saddam could be hanged early next year, according to Iraq's chief prosecutor.\nEven if a U.S. court were to rule in Saddam's favor, there is no indication that the Iraqi judiciary would apply the decision and stay the execution.