Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Media: The Associated Press
Byline: By BUSHRA JUHI and JAMAL HALABY
Date: 19 October 2006
Body:
BAGHDAD, Iraq_Government forces bombed northern Iraq with chemical weapons
in 1988, causing people to flee in panic as clouds of deadly gas approached,
a Kurdish witness told Saddam Hussein's genocide trial Thursday.
"People in my village were screaming that they were infected by chemical
weapons," the witness, Abdullah Saeed, 79, testified.
"We loaded children, women and other persons infected with chemical weapons
onto three trucks and fled to another village," Saaed said, recalling a day
in April 1988 when he said Saddam's forces bombed two other villages,
causing clouds of smoke to drift toward his home.
The farmer said that as they drove away, Saddam's forces stopped the trucks,
arrested the passengers and took them to a detention facility, where
sanitary conditions were appalling.
Saddam and six other co-defendants are facing charges of war crimes and
crimes against humanity for their roles in Operation Anfal, a military
offensive against the Kurds in 1987-88. The prosecution says some 180,000
Kurds were killed and hundreds of villages destroyed.
Saddam and one other defendant are also charged with genocide.
The seven accused face death by hanging if convicted.
The court heard Wednesday two other Kurds recount how they survived
massacres conducted after guards took them in trucks into the desert,
telling them they were being moved to another detention center.
One witness said he fell wounded into a ditch full of bodies. He said he
climbed out and ran for his life past mounds in the desert, the mass graves
of other victims in the offensive.
Both witnesses recalled fellow prisoners reciting the Islamic prayers before
death, asking for God's forgiveness of their sins, as they realized they
were going to be shot.
Byline: By BUSHRA JUHI and JAMAL HALABY
Date: 19 October 2006
Body:
BAGHDAD, Iraq_Government forces bombed northern Iraq with chemical weapons
in 1988, causing people to flee in panic as clouds of deadly gas approached,
a Kurdish witness told Saddam Hussein's genocide trial Thursday.
"People in my village were screaming that they were infected by chemical
weapons," the witness, Abdullah Saeed, 79, testified.
"We loaded children, women and other persons infected with chemical weapons
onto three trucks and fled to another village," Saaed said, recalling a day
in April 1988 when he said Saddam's forces bombed two other villages,
causing clouds of smoke to drift toward his home.
The farmer said that as they drove away, Saddam's forces stopped the trucks,
arrested the passengers and took them to a detention facility, where
sanitary conditions were appalling.
Saddam and six other co-defendants are facing charges of war crimes and
crimes against humanity for their roles in Operation Anfal, a military
offensive against the Kurds in 1987-88. The prosecution says some 180,000
Kurds were killed and hundreds of villages destroyed.
Saddam and one other defendant are also charged with genocide.
The seven accused face death by hanging if convicted.
The court heard Wednesday two other Kurds recount how they survived
massacres conducted after guards took them in trucks into the desert,
telling them they were being moved to another detention center.
One witness said he fell wounded into a ditch full of bodies. He said he
climbed out and ran for his life past mounds in the desert, the mass graves
of other victims in the offensive.
Both witnesses recalled fellow prisoners reciting the Islamic prayers before
death, asking for God's forgiveness of their sins, as they realized they
were going to be shot.
