Three low-level members of Iraq's former ruling party, on trial with Saddam Hussein, Sunday denied involvement in a Shiite massacre, while the chief prosecutor called for any defendants found guilty to be promptly hanged.
Sunday marked the first time since Saddam and seven co-defendants went on trial in October that the accused were invited to testify as to their role in the killing of 148 Shiite villagers, rounded up in the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after Saddam escaped assassination there in 1982.
All defendants face a possible death penalty. Speaking on television just ahead of the hearing, chief prosecutor Jaafar Mussawi said execution need not await the outcome of future trials if guilt were proved in this court case.
"If the court passes a death sentence on any of the defendants in the Dujail case, the law is clear, the sentence must be carried out within 30 days following the appeal," Mussawi said. "As for other cases (in which they have been charged), the court will only judge living defendants as those executed cannot be tried," he added.
Saddam and his henchmen have also been charged in connection with other crimes, including the use of poison gas during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq against Iraqi Kurds in the northern town of Halabja, and the crushing of a Shiite revolt in the south of the country following the 1991 Gulf War.
US officials want a full judicial process to allow Iraqis to consider each of Saddam's alleged crimes in turn, but the Shiite-led Iraqi government argues that justice delayed is justice denied, and that keeping Saddam alive fans the insurgency.
At least 20 Iraqis were killed and dozens wounded in and around Baghdad in a series of mortar, bomb and shooting attacks, a spike in violence often associated with the resumption of court hearings.
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