(VOI) -- The Iraqi Supreme Criminal Court on Thursday resumed its third session to try the Friday prayers case, in which 14 officials of the former regime are being tried on charges of detaining a large number of civilians, lynching many of them, rendering several families homeless, and decimating whole villages in the provinces of Baghdad, Missan, Samawa, and Basra in February 1999.The session, headed by Chief Justice Muhammad Uraiby, began with hearing a witness's statement, who spoke from behind a curtain for security reasons. The witness depicted events that took at that time, then a number of defendants and their attorneys spoke.
The Friday prayers incidents erupted after the assassination of Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Muhammad Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr and his two sons in the city of al-Kufa on February 19, 1999, whose death is blamed on the former regime's intelligence agencies. The death of Sadr, the father of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, was followed by security tension in many Iraqi cities then, including the then Saddam City (currently al-Sadr city), where the al-Mohsin and al-Hikma mosques were attacked, leaving a large number of worshipers killed and scores others detained.
Of the 14 defendants, seven were senior officials and party leaders of the former regime: Tareq Aziz, Ali Hassan al-Majid, Latif Nassif Jassem, Aziz Saleh Nouman, Muhammad Zimam Abdelrazzaq, Akla Abad Sakr, and Seif al-Din al-Mashhadani. Other defendants included Abad Hemeid Mahmoud, the secretary of the former regime, and Muhammad Mahmoud Fizi al-Hazzaa, who occupied several military and government posts including the Missan governor. Five of the fourteen were members of the divisions of the dissolved Baath Party of former President Saddam Hussein. They are Ibrahim Sahib Karam, Jabbar Hadhoud, Ziyad Qays Jassem, Jassem Muhammad Hajim, and Muhammad Jassem Ghleim.