IRAQ - Oct 9 - Saddam's Guards 'Buried People Alive'.A former female prisoner Plot summary After being cruelly set up crooked detective named Sugimi (Isao Natsuyagi) she had whole-heartedly fallen in love with, Nami Matsushima (aka Matsu the Scorpion) (Meiko Kaji) is sended to doing hard time in a female prison with 300 prisoners, making her 301. testifies in the genocide trial of the ex-president saying prison guards under Saddam Hussain used to bury detainees alive and watch women as they bathed, occasionally shooting over their heads. Speaking in Kurdish through an Arabic interpreter, the 31-year-old witness recalled what she saw as a 13-year-old Kurdish girl who was detained de·tain tr.v. de·tained, de·tain·ing, de·tains 1. To keep from proceeding; delay or retard. 2. To keep in custody or temporary confinement: during Saddam's offensive against the Kurds in the late 1980s. She was one of the day's four Kurdish witnesses to testify about alleged atrocities. The trial was adjourned until today. The woman, who testified behind a curtain and whose name was withheld apparently for fear of reprisal reprisal, in international law, the forcible taking, in time of peace, by one country of the property or territory belonging to another country or to the citizens of the other country, to be held as a pledge or as redress in order to satisfy a claim. , said Iraqi government forces destroyed her Kurdish village in northern Iraq in 1988. She and some family members were imprisoned im·pris·on tr.v. im·pris·oned, im·pris·on·ing, im·pris·ons To put in or as if in prison; confine. [Middle English emprisonen, from Old French emprisoner : en- in southern Iraq. A prison warden she identified as Hajaj - whose name has been given by earlier witnesses in the trial - "used to drag women, their hands and feet shackled, and leave them in a scorching scorch v. scorched, scorch·ing, scorch·es v.tr. 1. To burn superficially so as to discolor or damage the texture of. See Synonyms at burn1. 2. sun for several hours". "Soldiers used to watch us bathe", said the woman. The guards also fired over the women's heads as they washed. The woman said several relatives disappeared during the offensive against the Kurds, branded Operation Anfal. "I know the fate of my family [members]. They were buried alive", she testified. The prosecution presented the court with documents showing that remains of the women's relatives turned up in a mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple, usually unidentified human corpses. There is no strict definition of the minimum number of bodies required to constitute a mass grave. . "I'd like to ask Saddam: 'what crime did women and children commit?" the woman said in court. She added she was seeking unspecified compensation because "Saddam's men looted our properties three times during my lifetime". Saddam and his six co-defendants sat quietly in court yesterday when their trial resumed after a 12-day break. They were not represented by lawyers. Chief Judge Muhammad Oreibi Al Khalifa had declared a recess after a stormy session on Sept 26 in which Saddam and his co-defendants were thrown out of court. The judge said then he wanted to give the defendants time to convince their lawyers to end their boycott of the trial, or to confer with Verb 1. confer with - get or ask advice from; "Consult your local broker"; "They had to consult before arriving at a decision" consult ask, enquire, inquire - inquire about; "I asked about their special today"; "He had to ask directions several times" new ones. |
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