Tel-Chai Nation

Iraq's current president has said that the deposed dictator Saddam has now confessed to his crimes in the past years, including the massacre of thousands of Kurds in the late 1980s. Here's the AP Wire's report via FOX News:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq's president said Tuesday that Saddam Hussein had confessed to killings and other "crimes" committed during his regime, including the massacre of thousands of Kurds in the late 1980s.

President Jalal Talabani told Iraqi television that he had been informed by an investigating judge that "he was able to extract confessions from Saddam's mouth" about crimes "such as executions" which the ousted leader had personally ordered.

Asked about specific examples, Talabani, a Kurd, replied "Anfal," the codename for the 1987-88 campaign which his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan maintains led to the deaths of about 182,000 Kurds and the destruction of "dozens of Kurdish villages."

Those villages included Halabja, where thousands of Kurdish villagers were gassed in 1988.

However, Abdel Haq Alani, a legal consultant to Saddam's family said Saddam did not mention any confession when he met Monday with his Iraqi lawyer.

"Is this the fabrication of Talabani or what? Let's not have a trial on TV. Let the court of law, not the media, make its ruling on this," Alani said.

Saddam faces his first trial Oct. 19 for his alleged role in another atrocity — the 1982 massacre of Shiites in Dujail, a town north of Baghdad, following an assassination attempt there against him.

The Iraqi Special Tribunal has decided to conduct trials on separate alleged offenses rather than lump them all together in a single proceeding.

Saddam could face the death penalty if convicted in the Dujail case, the only one referred to trial so far.

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Labels: jihad