Baghdad: The chief judge formally charged Saddam Hussein on Monday with murder, torture of women and children and the illegal arrest of 399 people in a crackdown against Shiites in the 1980s, taking the trial of the ousted Iraqi leader into a new phase.
Saddam, who sat alone in the defendants' pen as the charges were read, refused to plead when chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman asked him if he was guilty or not.
''I can't just say yes or no to this. You read all this for the sake of public consumption, and I can't answer it in brief, ''Saddam replied. ''This will never shake one hair of my head.''
''You are before Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq. I am the President of Iraq according to the will of the Iraqis and I am still the President up to this moment,'' he said.
Saddam and seven former members of his regime have been on trial for nearly seven months over the repression of the residents of the town of Dujail.
Under the Iraqi trial system, the court first hears plaintiffs outline their complaint against the defendants and the
prosecutions' evidence against them. Then the judges decide on specific charges, and the defense begins making its case.
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