Trial of Saddam Hussein - First Hearing: 1 July 2004

First Hearing: 1 July 2004

The 68-year-old deposed Saddam appeared confident and defiant throughout the 46-minute hearing. Alternating between listening to and gesturing at the judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin, he questioned the legitimacy of the tribunal set up to try him. He called the court a "play" aimed at Bush's chances of winning the US presidential elections. He emphatically rejected charges against him. "This is all theater. The real criminal is Bush", he stated. When asked by the judge to identify himself in his first appearance before an Iraqi judge (three of the five judges and the prosecutor are never identified nor photographed for security reasons), he answered, "You are an Iraqi, you know who I am."

Also during the arraignment, Saddam defended Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait and referred to Kuwaitis as "dogs" who were trying to turn the women of Iraq into "two penny whores", which led to an admonishment from the judge for using coarse language in court. Later on 1 July, Kuwait's information minister Abul-Hassan said crude language was "expected" of Saddam. "This is how he was raised", said the minister.

Although no attorneys for Saddam were present at the 1st of July hearing, his first wife, Sajida Talfah, hired a multinational legal team of attorneys, headed by Jordanian Mohammad Rashdan and including Ayesha Gaddafi (Libya), Curtis Doebbler (United States), Emmanuel Ludot (France) and Marc Henzelin (Switzerland). Towards the end of the first hearing, the deposed president refused to sign the legal document confirming his understanding of the charges.