An Iraqi Kurd told Saddam Hussein's genocide trial today that jets dropped poison gas on his mountain village.
Taking the stand in Baghdad on the second day of the second capital trial the former president has faced, first witness Ali Mustafa Hama said: "Birds were returning to their nests. I saw eight to 12 jets patrolling the sky. There was greenish smoke from the bombs. There was a smell of rotten apple or garlic.
"People were vomiting. . . . We were blinded. We were screaming. There was no one to save us, only God."
Two of Saddam's former military commanders, among six fellow defendants charged with war crimes, had earlier been allowed to make brief statements in their defence, in which they portrayed the 1988 Anfal - Spoils of War - campaign as a legitimate response to Iraqi Kurds fighting alongside Iran against Baghdad.
"The Iranians and Kurds were fighting hand in hand against the Iraqi forces," former military intelligence chief Sabir al- Douri told the court. "Iran wanted to break through," he added, recalling Saddam's 1980-88 war against the Islamic Republic.
Saddam and his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, are charged with genocide over the seven-month campaign. Majid earned his nickname "Chemical Ali" after poison gas attacks in the north.
Hama, one of several witnesses to be presented by the prosecution to lodge a formal complaint against the defendants, spoke of events nearly a year before the formal launch of the Anfal campaign in the Balisan valley, north of Sulaimaniya.