Saddam Trial Judge Facing Fresh Bias Allegation

The judge in Saddam Hussein's trial has denied that the former Iraqi president was ever a dictator, a day after denying prosecution claims that he was biased in favour of the defendant.

Abdullah al-Amiri volunteered the comment during the cross-examination of a witness, whose family were disappeared during the anti-Kurdish Anfal campaign in the late 1980s.

Abdullah Mohammed Hussein, a 57-year-old farmer, said that nine of his relatives had vanished during the campaign and that the bodies of three of them had been identified in a mass grave opened up since the Iraq war.

He said he had visited Saddam to ask about their fate and that the president had answered: "Shut up. Your family is gone in the Anfal."

During his questioning of the witness, Saddam questioned whether he would have paid such a visit if the prosecution's case was true.

"I wonder why this wanted to meet with me, if I am a dictator?" he asked.

The judge interrupted: "You were not a dictator. People around you made you (look like) a dictator."

"Thank you," Saddam responded, bowing his head in respect.

Yesterday, the chief prosecutor, Munqith al-Faroon, accused Judge al-Amiri of being lenient to Saddam and allowing him more space to speak than prosecution lawyers.

"You allowed this court to become a political podium for the defendants," he said. "For instance yesterday, instead of taking legal action (against Saddam), you asked his permission to talk."

Mr al-Amiri is a Sunni Muslim, like Saddam, in a country where Sunnis are now a minority in both numerical and political terms. Under Saddam's rule and for centuries beforehand, Sunni Muslims dominated the Shia majority in the country.