Iran wants former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, whose Baghdad trial resumed on Wednesday, to be charged with ordering poison gas attacks that killed thousands of Iranian civilians during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, a top Iranian official said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Saddam had used chemical weapons to kill Iranians during the war, especially in Iran's northwestern Kurdish area, flattening entire villages and destroying farms.
"Iran is the main victim of chemical weapons. Saddam's use of chemicals was against international laws," Mottaki told reporters in a hospital where he was visiting "living martyrs," wounded survivors of Saddam's chemical weapons attacks.
Mottaki said Iran had prepared a petition which the foreign ministry would pass on to the court in Baghdad.
The petition included documents that proved Iraq's use of nerve and mustard gas during the eight-year war, Mottaki said.
"During the war, Saddam used chemicals against Iran 20 times," Mottaki said, adding that some 40,000 people had been affected.
Iran has repeatedly accused the West of supplying Saddam with the technology and some of the materials to develop chemical weapons.
But Iran was deeply concerned about the influence of the US on the trial, he added.
SADDAM ACCUSES
During his trial in Iraq yesterday, Saddam accused the White House of lying, citing its prewar assertions that Iraq had chemical weapons and its denial of his statement that he had been tortured in US custody.
Speaking at the start of the seventh session of his trial on charges of crimes against humanity, Saddam rekindled his battle of words with Washington.
"The White House are liars. They said Iraq had chemical weapons," he told the court.
"They lied again when they said that what Saddam said was wrong," he added, referring to a White House dismissal of his claim that he was tortured.
Saddam made his torture allegation during Wednesday's hearing and said he had bruises on his body to prove it. He did not, however, show any bruises and the judge has so far made no public ruling on whether the allegation should be investigated.
"That's one of the most preposterous things I've heard from Saddam Hussein recently," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in Washington in response.
"Saddam Hussein is being treated the exact opposite of the way his regime treated those he imprisoned and tortured simply for expressing their opinions. And so I reject that," he said.
The judge dismissed a courtroom guard yesterday after the defendants complained he had threatened them, and Saddam's half-brother and co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti accused prosecutors of being former fellow members of the Baath party.
"This is the biggest insult in my life, to be associated with this blood-stained party," said one prosecutor, who asked to be relieved of his duties because of personal insults from the dock -- a request dismissed by the Kurdish judge.
The first witness to testify yesterday spoke from behind a curtain to protect his identity, but, like some earlier witnesses, said nothing directly implicating either Saddam or the other defendants in the Dujail killings.
Defense lawyers questioned his reliability as a witness, pointing out he was only eight in 1982.
"This is a waste of time," one said. "He was only a child."
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS