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Judge says Saddam was not a dictator
By UPI Staff
United Press International
September 15, 2006

BAGHDAD (UPI) -- After being accused of bias in favor of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the chief judge at his Baghdad trial said Thursday Saddam never was a dictator.

The unusual remark came while Saddam himself was questioning a Kurdish witness about an incident in which the man tried to meet with him in 1989.

"Why did you try to meet me when you knew I was a dictator?" Saddam asked.

Judge Abdullah al-Amiri interrupted and said: "You were not a dictator. People around you made you (look like) a dictator," the BBC reported.

A day earlier, the prosecution accused Amiri of being biased toward Saddam and allowing him to make threats and political speeches. A request for Amiri to step down was denied.

Saddam and six others are on trial for genocide involving the deaths of as many as 180,000 Kurds in the late 1980s when Iraq was at war with Iran in northern Iraq.

Prosecutors allege the government used traditional and biological weapons in what is called the Anfal campaign.

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