Iraq denies courtroom assault on Saddam

BAGHDAD, Sunday (AFP)

Iraq's special tribunal Sunday denied reports that an unidentified man had attacked ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein during a court hearing in Baghdad and that the pair had exchanged blows.

"This report is wrong. The tribunal respects human rights in its treatment of those accused," a court spokesman said, adding that there was "neither a verbal, nor a physical" attack on Saddam.

The former dictator's Amman-based defence team Saturday said the 68-year-old former dictator was attacked by an unidentified man as he was leaving the courtroom after a hearing on Thursday.

"There was a fist-fight between them," his lawyers said in a statement. "The head of the court did not intervene to stop the assault."

Thursday's hearing of the tribunal related to possible charges against Saddam Hussein over the brutal suppression of a Shiite uprising in 1991 following the Gulf War that ended Iraq's occupation of Kuwait.

"If the report was correct, the attack would have been punished under the law," a tribunal statement said. "We respect the law that says the accused is innocent until proven guilty."

Earlier this month, the tribunal filed the first charges against Saddam over the 1982 killing of 143 residents of the village of Dujail, northeast of Baghdad, where he had been the target of a failed assassination bid.

No date for his trial has yet been set.

Saddam was ousted in April 2003 after the US-led invasion of Iraq and was captured in December of that year near his hometown of Tikrit. He and several of his henchmen are in US custody at a base near Baghdad airport awaiting trial on charges of crimes against humanity.