Wednesday, March 15 2006 16:04 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Baghdad: Saddam Hussein's half-brother, former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim, today (Mar 15 2006) denied he took part in crackdown against Shiites in the 1980s as he testified for the first time in the trial of the former Iraqi leader and members of his regime.

Ibrahim is the latest of the eight defendants in the trial to undergo direct questioning by the judge and chief prosecutor. Saddam is expected to testify later today.

The former Iraqi leader and his regime officials are charged with killing 148 Shiites, illegal imprisonment and torture in a crackdown launched after an assassination attempt against Saddam in the Shiite village of Dujail in 1982. They face possible execution by hanging if convicted.

In previous sessions, Dujail residents have testified that Ibrahim personally participating in torturing them during their imprisonment at the Baghdad headquarters of Mukhabarat intelligence agency, which Ibrahim headed. One woman claimed Ibrahim kicked her in the chest while she was hung upside down and naked by her interrogators.

Ibrahim, wearing a traditional red scarf on his head, told chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman that he visited Dujail on the day of the July 8, 1982 shooting attack on Saddam's motorcade and on the following day, but then "never visited it again after that."

He said the General Security agency handled the investigation into the shooting, not his own Mukhabarat. He claimed he ordered the release of Dujail residents who had been detained. "I chided the security and party officials for detaining those people," he said "I shook their (the released detainees') hands and let them go."