(24 May 2006)
1. Wide of dock
2. Close up of Chief judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman
3. Close up of Former Iraqi Leader, Saddam Hussein
4. Cutaway lawyers
5. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Raouf Abdel-Rahman, Chief judge:
"From the beginning, we have said that this court is a transparent one and the defence team and defendants are allowed to express their opinion within the law and regulations. But what happened two days ago were excesses and insults on the judges, the trial process and even on the Iraqi people."
6. Cutaway Saddam
7. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Raouf Abdel-Rahman, Chief judge: (Speaking to Barzan but Saddam interrupts)
"Listen, listen listen. If you continue with this I shall decide to throw you out of court and keep you there until the end of the trial."
Saddam: "Do you want to shut people's mouth this way?" (Saddam spoke up from his seat.)
Judge: "You are a defendant sitting before a court."
Saddam: "I am your president."
Judge: "You were a president, now you are an accused in a criminal case. You have to know your present position not the previous one."
Saddam: "You have elected me. Can you say you didn't?"
8. Wide of lawyers
9. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Tariq Aziz, Former Iraqi former foreign minister and deputy prime minister: (Part overlayed with Cutaways Judge and Saddam)
"President Saddam Hussein was my president and comrade for decades. I have known him before he became an official in the state after 17 July (1968)."
Judge: " What about the other accused, Barzan?"
Aziz: " Barzan was also my friend and like a brother. He was head of the intelligence service and was not responsible for the Dujail incident."
10. Wide of dock
11. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Tariq Aziz, Former Iraqi former foreign minister and deputy prime minister:
"If the head of state, in any country in the world, even in Switzerland, faces a public assassination attempt like the one which took place in Dujail, the state is forced, by law , to take measures and detain all those who proved to have taken part in this operation or conspired in it."
12. Wide of dock
STORYLINE
Tariq Aziz, once a close member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle, testified as a defence witness in the trial of the former Iraqi leader on Wednesday, saying the regime had to strike back with a crackdown on a Shiite town after a 1982 assassination attempt on Saddam.
The 70-year-old Aziz, a former foreign minister and deputy prime minister, sat on the stand wearing checkered pyjamas and looked pale.
Aziz, who is in US custody, has complained of health problems and his family has been pressing for him to be let out temporarily for medical treatment.
Chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman opened the session with a sharp warning to the defence lawyers and the eight defendants that he would not allow insults to the court.
In the previous session, Abdel-Rahman threw out a woman defence lawyer when she tried to speak after he warned he not to.
"From the beginning, we have said that this court is a transparent one and the defence team and defendants are allowed to express their opinion within the law and regulations. But what happened two days ago were excesses and insults on the judges, the trial process and even on the Iraqi people," Abdel-Rahman said.
Abdel-Rahman has shown increasing frustration with the defendants' constant accusations that the court was formed by Americans and is illegitimate.
The lawyer he ejected, Bushra al-Khalil, has made that argument in past sessions, though she didn't on Monday when she was forced out.
"Do you want to shut people's mouth this way?" Saddam spoke up from him seat.
"You are a defendant," Abdel-Rahman yelled.
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