Trappings of power gone, but ex-dictator’s swagger still there

Saddam Hussein carried a copy of the Qu’ran, the Muslim holy book, as he walked into a pen of white iron slats yesterday to face trial.

The 68-year-old, dressed in a grey suit and open-collar white shirt, wished his former underlings peace and then leaned back in his chair, striking a pose reminiscent of the once-ubiquitous television pictures of him sitting at the head of a table surrounded by "yes" men.

The former leader, who used to live in first one and then another of the marble palaces he built, gave little appearance of a man on trial for his life.

"Who are you? I want to know who you are," he asked the top judge.

"I do not respond to this so-called court, with all due respect to its people, and I retain my constitutional right as the president of Iraq," he said, as the judge tried to interrupt him. "Neither do I recognise the body that has designated and authorised you, nor the aggression — because all that has been built on false basis is false."

The performance drew praise from Saddam’s eldest daughter, Raghad, who called it the brave stand of a man who will never give in.

"It was the most wonderful thing I’ve seen in my life," she said in a telephone interview with the pan-Arab satellite channel, Al-Arabiya TV. Throughout the stormy three-hour session, Saddam continued to argue with the judges. Then, as a break was called, he got into a scuffle with guards.

First he stood and smiled before asking to step out of the room. When two guards tried to take his arms to escort him out, he angrily shook them off. They tried to grab him again, and he struggled to get free. During the ensuing scuffle that lasted about a minute, Saddam and the guards yelled at each other.

The scuffle ended with Saddam getting his way, and being allowed to walk independently, with the two guards behind him, out of the room for the break. He did not appear harmed.

When the break ended, the judge announced that the session was adjourned until November 28.