Iraqi Court Releases Video of a Much Subdued Hussein

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 13 - The Iraqi court trying Saddam Hussein and his top aides released a videotape on Monday showing a subdued, contemplative and seemingly compliant Mr. Hussein being questioned Sunday about mass executions ordered after he had survived an assassination attempt in 1982.

The Iraqi special tribunal questioned Saddam Hussein about the killings of dozens of men in a Shiite village in 1982.

The two-minute recording, without sound, appeared to show a strikingly different Mr. Hussein than the defiant figure whose only court appearance, last July, featured lengthy self-justifications and mockery for the judge, Raid Juhi, 35. Then, after an anxious start when he appeared to fear he might be summarily shot, it was Mr. Hussein who dominated the court, with hectoring rebukes for Mr. Juhi for serving his 'American masters' and for having the temerity to sit in judgment on the man who had appointed him a judge.

But in the video excerpt it is the judge, Mr. Juhi, who appears to set the tone. Mr. Hussein is shown responding quietly, after careful thought, and glancing sideways at one point to his Iraqi lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, as if for reassurance."