SADDAM
BAGHDAD, IRAQ (AP):
The chief judge pushed ahead with the trial of Saddam Hussein yesterday even after the former Iraqi leader, four other defendants and their defence team boycotted the tribunal, demanding the judge's removal.
In some of the strongest testimonies of the trial so far, a female prosecution witness told the court she was stripped naked in prison, hung by her hands, beaten and given electric shocks.
During the interrogation, Barzan Ibrahim,Saddam's half brother and the top co-defendant in the trial - told guards to turn her to hang from her feet, then he kicked her three times in the chest, the witness said.
"I told him (Ibrahim), 'For God's sake, I'm a woman. Master, I have nothing to confess. Why are you doing this to me?'," she recalled, weeping several times during her testimony.
