On Monday, the defence witnesses at the trial of Saddam Hussein testified that death sentences handed down to 148 Shia men convicted for their alleged involvement in a 1982 assassination attempt on Saddam were fair.
One witness was a former Revolutionary Court lawyer, who appeared on behalf of Awad al-Bandar, one of Saddam's co-accused.
Bandar was the chief judge when the court passed the death sentence on the 148 Shias. He was quoted as saying:
"The court allowed defendants to commission a lawyer and if a defendant was not able to hire a lawyer then the court would appoint one for him.
Mr Bandar took the humanitarian aspect into consideration, and he was fair and made all judgements according to law."
The next witness had once been a defendant before the Revolutionary Court. He said:
"I didn't want a lawyer because I was innocent but the judge gave me sufficient time to bring a defence lawyer to defend me. I still remember he called me 'my son' and I was just a defendant."
Bandar has claimed that the Dujail trial was fair, despite the fact that there was only one defence lawyer for all 148 accused and that the trial took only 16 days.
During yesterday's hearing, some of the witnesses restated their loyalty to Saddam.
One asked if he could offer greetings to Saddam from his tribe and family. Needless to say, the judge pointed out that this was a courtroom not a Baath party meeting.
Saddam laughed and answered:
"Well done, well done. Say hello to all of them."
The judge ejected a member of the public after the defence complained that the man was a member of a Shia militia, who had threatened lawyers in the past.
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