Saddam Trial Update

New York Times:

Witnesses at Saddam Hussein's genocide trial on Tuesday gave harrowing accounts of surviving killing fields where Iraqi soldiers executed Kurdish prisoners in sprays of gunfire and dumped their bodies in mass graves.

One witness, who testified behind a curtain to conceal his identity, told the court that as he and other detainees waited in a bus in the desert for what they suspected to be a firing squad, they decided to attack the sole guard in the vehicle.

''But other guards outside the bus shot at random, killing many people,'' he said. ''I saw my friends falling dead like dry leaves from a tree.''

He said he ''miraculously'' managed to escape. ''I don't know how I fled. I can't remember if I jumped or walked.''

...

Another witness Tuesday recounted how he survived a separate massacre by feigning death when Iraqi soldiers shot at detainees lying at their feet.

The witness, who also spoke behind a curtain, said he was one of dozens of Kurdish prisoners who were taken in buses to an execution site in western Iraq in April 1988.

The witness said the prisoners knew they were going to be shot when they arrived at the killing site near Ramadi because they heard gunfire. They said the Islamic prayers that are customary before death, asking for one's sins to be forgiven.

''The guards took two prisoners at a time from the bus, shot them dead and dragged their bodies to a huge ditch,'' he said.

''When it was my turn, I and my cousin -- whom I asked to sit next to me so that we would be killed together -- alighted from the bus, were blindfolded and handcuffed. I beseeched God to save me.

''The guards asked us to lie down on the ground and then they sprayed us with bullets. I felt no pain. I thought that maybe when the bullet pierces the body, one doesn't feel the pain, but then I heard my cousin dying.

''We were pulled away by our legs. I pretended I was dead.''