REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Friday July 2, 2004

FORMER Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was unrepentant and refused to sign legal papers after seven charges were read against him during his first court appearance while also defending his 1990 invasion of Kuwait, said a tribunal official.

Dressed in black, Saddam declared, ‘Kuwait is an Iraqi territory – it was not an invasion’, according to an official who attended the 30minute hearing.

A defiant Saddam also mocked his accusers, describing the process as ‘theatre’ and calling the then-US President George W. Bush the real criminal.

Saddam’s hands were cuffed when he was brought into court for the arraignment, which lasted about 30 minutes. The cuffs were taken off when he went in.

”I am Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq,’’ the CNN pool reporter quoted Saddam as saying.

Saddam was flown by helicopter from an undisclosed location and driven to the makeshift courtroom in a Baghdad palace complex where he once indulged friends with hunting and fishing trips.

The courtroom was close to the palace in the middle of an artificial lake on the southwest fringe of Baghdad.

The complex became Camp Victory, a sprawling US military base where top US generals in Iraq had their headquarters.

Saddam was led from an armoured bus, escorted by two Iraqi prison guards, and ushered through a door guarded by six more Iraqi policemen, according to CNN.

The bus was escorted by four humvees and an ambulance.