IRAQ. SADDAM ADMITS TO EXECUTION ORDER

subjected to cross-examination for the first time, former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein admitted that he had signed an order of execution for 148 men and boys with only a cursory glance at the evidence.
The testimony appeared to bolster the case of the prosecution in a tumultuous six-month trial that had been plagued by assassinations, courtroom outbursts and political infighting, and that was still widely seen as illegitimate by international observers and human-rights advocates.
The chief prosecutor, Jaafar al-Mousawi, was trying to establish that Saddam and seven co-defendants were responsible for the torture and executions of men and boys from the Shiite village of Dujail, where a small group of guerrillas tried to kill Saddam in 1982.
The victims were rounded up shortly after the assassination attempt and sent off to prisons, where they were eventually killed, the court charged.