[JURIST] Defense lawyers in the Saddam Hussein trial [JURIST news archive] on Wednesday accused a prosecution witness of perjury and urged chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman [BBC profile] to stop proceedings at the Iraqi High Criminal Court to investigate the credibility of all the prosecution witnesses. Defense lawyers showed a DVD in court depicting Ali al-Haidari, a witness for the prosecution, saying that there was no assassination attempt on Hussein's life in 1982 and that the gun shots were to celebrate Hussein's visit to Dujail. Hussein and his seven co-defendants are charged [JURIST report] with killing, torturing and illegally detaining Dujail residents in a crackdown prompted by the assassination attempt. Al-Haidari testified last December on behalf of the prosecution that Hussein's government arrested him during the Dujail attack and tortured him.

In response, the prosecution also accused defense witnesses of lying on the stand, after a witness alleged that the chief prosecutor had attempted to bribe him to lie during his testimony. Abdel-Rahman warned the witness against perjury, prompting an outburst from former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim [Trial Watch profile], one of Hussein's co-defendants. Abdel-Rahman threw Ibrahim out of the court room [AP report] after Ibrahim argued with the judge. AP has more.