December 1, 2006
Saddam's forces filled mass graves with children
by Paul Schemm
AFP
Iraqi troops have gunned down mothers cradling infants and slaughtered scores of Kurdish children before bulldozing them into mass graves, a forensic expert told Saddam Hussein's genocide trial.
In harrowing testimony, American expert Michael Trimble explained how three mass graves discovered since the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq were filled mainly with the bullet-riddled corpses of very young children.
Of 301 corpses in the graves, 183 were Kurdish children killed during Saddam's Anfal campaign in 1988, said Trimble, who is the head of the mass graves investigation unit at the Iraqi High Tribunal
"The captives were often bound and blindfolded. The captives were led into the grave and then executed with pistols or automatic assault rifle fire. The graves were then covered by those directing the execution," Trimble said.
"In all these graves, 90 percent of the children are less than 13 years of age," he said, adding that one was a child of six to 12 months, "shot in the back of his head as his mother held him in her arms."
Describing the evidence found at one of the graves in Al-Muthanna in southern Iraq Trimble said: "It was a highly organised programme of execution."
Trimble showed slides of a child of five to six years whose legs were cut in half by a bullet. She had been dressed in little green boots embossed with the image of a small cat.
Another child of eight to 10 years had wounds on the front and back.
"It is very clear these people were twisting as they were getting shot at. There is a terror that takes over as people try to get out of the way. It's a very common human response," Trimble said.
Another girl of nine to 16 years was carrying some tea and a little glass vial of perfume when she was shot.
A pregnant woman aged between 35 to 40 years was killed by a single round which passed through her womb and killed her unborn child, he said.
Describing a gruesome death of a child of three to nine years from the Muthanna grave, Trimble said: "There is no gunshot trauma on this child, this child's ribs were broken on the right side as you can see."
"We cannot document it because we don't have the flesh, but this child probably smothered to death in his mother's arms because a broken rib would not have killed him," he said.
Trimble stressed that all the victims were Kurds.
"In all this clothing, it's very distinct of Kurdish people. I might say that all the clothes in all the graves we tested was Kurdish."
Trimble said that the average number of times children were shot was four and adults nine and that "that's a huge number."
Most of the dead were shot either standing or kneeling next to the graves.
From the 123 bodies found in one of the two Nineveh graves, Trimble said "all these individuals were executed by gunshot. There were no adult males."
"There were 25 adult females, and I would call your attention to the fact there were 98 children."
Saddam dismissed the Trimble's testimony, saying that an American could not be unbiased.
"Let me suggest to the court to put into consideration only what is mentioned by American expert but call a new trial expert that has nothing to do with the enemy or the army of the enemy," he said.
"Let him come and examine the mass graves, or other mass graves, because I know there are more mass graves, and let him start neutrally," he added.
Co-defendant and the former deputy of operations for Iraq's armed forces Hussein Rashid said that the Anfal campaign was "conducted to kick the Iranians out of the north part of Iraq."
"We are not responsible for mass graves, we never issued any orders to kill anyone or make mass graves. We do not accept this," he insisted, before the trail was adjourned until Monday.
Iraqi prosecutors are attempting to build an overwhelming body of evidence of the deliberate mass slaughter of Kurdish civilians by Iraqi forces.
Saddam and six co-defendants are accused of killing 182,000 Kurds in 1988, when government troops swept through Kurdistan, burning and bombing thousands of villages, sometimes with poison gas.
The former regime says the Anfal campaign was a legitimate counterinsurgency operation against Kurdish separatists at a time when the country was locked in war with neighbouring Iran.
Saddam has already been handed a death sentence in a previous trial.
