The trial of Saddam Hussein and seven of his top lieutenants for crimes against humanity was adjourned yesterday to October, when the verdict carrying the maximum penalty of death is expected to be delivered.

"The court decided to adjourn the session ... until October 16," said chief judge Raouf Abdel Rahman.

Saddam and the seven others are charged with the killing of 148 Shi'ites after an attempt on his life in Dujail in 1982. Saddam faces a second trial, starting in a month, on charges of genocide against the country's ethnic Kurds.

Saddam was not in court yesterday but two co-defendants, former Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, chief of Saddam's Revolutionary Court, attended and complained bitterly that it was a sham.

But the judge told Bandar to "shut up" and ordered two guards to force him to take his seat, after the two exchanged angry words.

"I wished you had hanged me, (rather) than the way you treated me," Bandar told Abdel Rahman, a Kurd.

Ramadan earlier rejected the services of five court-appointed lawyers after his own legal team boycotted the proceedings, opting instead to defend himself.

"This case is fabricated against me since the beginning. I am innocent and I realize that the verdict was already prepared against me," he said.

The maximum penalty is death and Saddam said on Wednesday that as a soldier, he deserved to meet this fate by firing squad rather than the gallows. His request is unlikely to be granted.

Iraqi law states an execution must be by hanging and Saddam appointed himself commander-in-chief, never actually serving in the military.

The televized proceedings took place in a court located inside the heavily fortified Green Zone, a sprawling compound housing the US Embassy and the new Iraqi Government in central Baghdad, near to several of Saddam's old palaces.

Ramadan looked tired and, at one stage, appeared to fall asleep for a few moments. He had joined the former Iraqi leader on a hunger strike, but broke it on Wednesday.

"I've been on hunger strike for 19 days and yesterday we ended the strike when President Saddam appeared in court," he said.

Source: China Daily