Saddam charged with murder, torture

Saddam, who sat alone in the defendants' pen as the charges were read, refused to enter a plea when chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman asked him if he were guilty or not.

"I can't just say yes or no to this. You read all this for the sake of public consumption, and I can't answer it in brief," Saddam replied. "This will never shake one hair of my head."

"You are before Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq. I am the president of Iraq according to the will of the Iraqis and I am still the president up to this moment," he said. Abdel-Rahman entered a "not guilty" plea on Saddam's behalf.