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The second building in the compound was a torture chamber and prison. It has since been turned into a genocide museum. Soviet-built tanks and anti-aircraft guns captured from Saddam’s defeated army are lined up outside. The entrance to the genocide museum is in the back of the building. To get there from the front you have to walk past one of the rape rooms. Women’s underwear and contraceptives were found in that room when the prison was liberated by the Peshmerga. When you enter the museum you will walk through a long and winding hallway. The walls are covered with mirror shards. Each represents one of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Kurds murdered in the genocidal Anfal campaign. A river of twinkling lights lines the ceiling. Each represents one of the five thousand villages destroyed by Saddam Hussein. ... Then the museum begins in earnest. Pictures of Kurdish dead line the truth about enzyte walls of the hallways and the old torture chambers and prison cells. I do not believe in ghosts or in lingering negative energy. But if I have ever been in a place that is haunted, this is it. ... Some rooms in the museum don’t have pictures at all. Instead they show the instruments and the methods of torture. In one room, the so-called “Washington Room,” men and women had hot electric irons pressed into their skin. The hardest thing to see was the cell used to hold children before they were murdered. My translator Alan read some of the messages carved into the wall. “I was ten years old. But they changed my age to 18 for execution.” Dear Mom and Dad. I am going to be executed by the Baath. I will not see you again.” 10,725 people were killed in this one building alone. All died during torture. posted by Asher Abrams at 6:31 AM US-led investigators have located nine trenches in Hatra containing hundreds of bodies believed to be Kurds killed during the repression of the 1980s. The skeletons of unborn babies and toddlers clutching toys are being unearthed, the investigators said. ...The victims are believed to be Kurds killed in 1987-88, their bodies bulldozed into the graves after being summarily shot dead. One trench contains only women and children while another contains only men. The body of one woman was found still clutching a baby. The infant had been shot in the back of the head and the woman in the face. "The youngest foetus we have was 18 to 20 foetal weeks," said US investigating anthropologist P Willey. "Tiny bones, femurs - thighbones the size of a matchstick." Full article: posted by Asher Abrams at 10:25 PM 'You might have heard that an assassination attempt against Uday had taken place in 1996, which left him with injuries that caused impotency. This made him even more cruel and sadistic than his usual self. It has been revealed after the fall of the regime that he shot the doctor who broke the news to him (c.f. interview with one of the close bodyguards of Uday at Al Arabia last year). This added one more complex to his extensive repertoire of psychological problems. He started to hate anything to do with other people having any kind of sexual pleasure. Well, that horrible day we learnt that the night before the Fedayeen [under Uday's command] had attacked scores of houses and dragged women and young girls to streets and beheaded many with swords leaving the heads at the doorsteps of the victims houses. Some of these heads were left in place for more than twenty-four hours. The atrocities lasted for several weeks.' The Mesopotamian, May 12, 2004
posted by Asher Abrams at 9:46 PM 'BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Men and women were tortured for days and babies left to die in an interrogation facility which featured a meat grinder for human flesh, the first prosecution witness to face Saddam Hussein told the court on Monday. After weeks of delay and legal arguments over security and the legitimacy of the court, the trial of Saddam and seven co- defendants on charges of crimes against humanity heard confusing but graphic witness evidence of torture and summary execution. "I swear by God I walked by a room and on my left I saw a grinder with blood coming out of it and human hair underneath," said 38-year-old Ahmed Hassan, who said he had been kept in room 63 at the Hakmiya intelligence headquarters in Baghdad. "One man was shot in the leg with two bullets... Some people were crippled because they had their arms and legs broken." He said they were held in Hakmiya for 70 days. While they were there a woman told a guard that her infant baby needed milk or he would die. "He died and the guard threw him from the window," Hassan told the court. "Pregnant women gave birth in the prison. Their babies died." posted by Asher Abrams at 10:10 PM BAGHDAD, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein may be fighting for his life in court but he still mesmerises Abu Hussein, a former torturer and hangman for the toppled leader who executed hundreds of Iraqis with the noose or the bullet. "I cry every time I think that he is on trial. I pray for his strength and freedom. Saddam must come back to rule Iraq," he told Reuters in an interview on Friday. "I am ready to return to my job if Saddam comes back." Death always came after weeks of torture. "Sometimes we would hang them upside down and beat their feet with clubs. Or we would electrocute them," he said. "We would have been killed on the spot. One time this executioner was one hour late in hanging someone and he was himself hanged. What could we do? All of this had a toll on us," he said. |