Graphic video footage of villagers fleeing or falling dead from what prosecutors descibed as a chemical attack against Kurdish civilians has been shown at Saddam Hussein's genocide trial on Tuesday.
The grainy video, shot over various days in April 1987 and May 1988, showed helicopters flying low over the mountains; villagers frantically fleeing in trucks; refugees on foot, white smoke and women gathered near tents, crying.
"Where are the terrorists they wanted to kill?" said prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon, pointing at the video and refering to people he said were targeted by the former regime. Footage showed civilian corpses lying rigid on fields and the stiff body of a dead baby, mouth open, being lifted onto a truck by survivors.
"These were different shots of what was called 'population centres' of the victims of chemical bombing," Faroon told the court Tuesday, according to the AP. For the second day running, the prosecution presented Iraqi government documents as evidence that lawyers said linked the defendants to chemical attacks and to the recommendation and use of "special ammunition".
Saddam sat in the dock with his six co-defendants as the court convened inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.
