Live TV brought Saddam Hussein back to Halabja yesterday as survivors in this small Kurdish town almost wiped out by a 1988 chemical attack watched their former dictator go on trial.
Many would have preferred to watch him hang.
"As long as Saddam is alive, our suffering will never end," said Pakhshan Mohamed Hama Mared, who lost three children in the gas attack and her husband a year later in the Iran-Iraq war.
On March 16th, 1988, an estimated 5,000 Halabja residents died from the poison gas. Kurds say Saddam's government ordered the move to punish them for seeking greater autonomy in northern Iraq during its war with Iran.
Saddam yesterday was charged with crimes against humanity stemming from the killing of more than 140 men in Dujail village north of Baghdad after a failed attempt on his life in 1982.
The Dujail case, while perhaps easier for prosecutors to win, pales against allegations that Saddam ordered the chemical attack on Halabja near the Iranian border - which could amount to genocide.
Saddam has dismissed the accusations, saying Iranian forces, with whom Iraq was at war from 1980-88, were the targets.
But Halabja's residents are convinced Saddam was behind the attack and hope the government completes its plan to bring him to book.
"If I had the chance to catch Saddam I'd cut him to pieces, but is that a solution?" asked local newspaper editor Kadr Ahmed (34), who lost his father, mother, five sisters and two cousins in the chemical strike.
Halabja residents say many survivors suffer from cancer, asthma and other ailments they blame on the attack, which combined napalm and mustard gas.
Residents made sure they were ready to watch Saddam's trial begin, buying extra fuel to fill home generators to keep their TVs working in case of power cuts. In the town centre, while most other shops were closed, Azad Heman kept the generator running and the TV on in his teashop - postponing his usual holiday during the month of Ramadan to give others a chance to watch.
All eyes were glued to the screen as Saddam appeared, and the only sound besides the TV was of men fingering their prayer beads.
But not all anger was focused on the screen.
Some people complained that Halabja was still run down and neglected, and that the new rulers in Baghdad after the 2003 US-led invasion had done little for the victims of one of the most gruesome crimes of the Saddam era.
"The government should provide us with electricity because of this significant event," Ahmed said.