Saddam Links Court to 'torturing' Ministry

Saddam Hussein today faced the first cross-examination of his six month-long murder trial, but within minutes turned the tables on prosecutors.

He accused the chief judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman, of following the orders of Iraq's interior ministry and called for an international inquiry into the prosecution's evidence.

The interior ministry "is the side that kills thousands in the street and tortures them", he said. "If you're scared of the interior minister, he doesn't scare my dog."

The ministry, which is dominated by Shia Muslims, has often been linked to a string of extrajudicial killings of Sunnis, who make up a minority of Iraq's population but dominated politics under Saddam's rule.

Saddam is due to be questioned over claims that he ordered the massacre of 140 residents of Dujail, a town north of Baghdad where he survived an assassination attempt in 1982.

Yesterday, an investigative judge announced he would face charges of genocide relating to his campaign against Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s, in which around 100,000 people are believed to have died.