Saddam in Hospital As Trial Resumes

The trial of Saddam Hussein reopened today in typically chaotic fashion, with the former Iraqi president absent in hospital while his lawyers boycotted the hearing.

Saddam was taken to hospital yesterday on the 16th day of a hunger strike he began in protest at the lack of security given to his defence lawyers, three of whom have been killed in apparent targeted attacks since the start of the trial.

His chief defence lawyer accused the US military of force-feeding him to break his spirit, but the US said he was being voluntarily tube-fed and that he was in a healthy condition, drinking sweet tea and receiving counselling.

The chief prosecutor, Jaafar al-Moussawi, said Saddam would be healthy enough to attend the trial later in the week.

Saddam's co-defendant and half-brother, the former Iraqi intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, refused to accept his court-appointed defence lawyer today and insisted he be removed from the court. "I am here against my will," he told the judge.

Barzan went on hunger strike at the same time as Saddam and the former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan, but appeared healthy at the hearing today.

The chief judge, Abdel Rahman, refused Barzan's request to adjourn the trial until the boycott by defence lawyers was over.

"The decision of your lawyers not to attend the court is for the purpose of the media only. I want to ask you how long you and your lawyers will continue to play this game with the court," he said.

The trial was previously adjourned a fortnight ago when the defence lawyers began their boycott in protest at the killing of the defence counsel Khamis al-Obeidi on June 21.

The trial, which has been proceeding fitfully for nine months after charges were laid just over a year ago, has been marked by disordered scenes as Saddam and his seven co-defendants have refused to accept the authority of the court.

The defendants have insisted that the court was being manipulated by the American occupation forces and Saddam has maintained that he is still the president of Iraq. The initial chief judge, Rizgar Amin, resigned in January amid criticism that he was unable to control Saddam's outbursts.

The defence team has been shaken by a series of attacks on its lawyers which began just days after the start of the trial. The abductions and killings have been blamed on Shia militants determined to punish lawyers prepared to defend the former dictator, whose government was dominated by Sunni Muslims.

Sectarian violence in Baghdad and Iraq as a whole has worsened in recent weeks, and the US military promised on Friday to draft more troops to Baghdad, saying that unrest between Sunni and Shia Muslims was now a bigger problem than the anti-coalition insurgency.

The eight men are on trial for the killing of 148 members of the Shia Dawa party in the town of Dujail after an assassination attempt on Saddam there in 1982. The Dawa party is now the most influential in the Iraqi government, and includes the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, amongst its members.

Sunnis in Iraq claim that the interior ministry in particular is infiltrated with members of the extremist Shia Badr brigades, who have carried out scores of execution-style killings against Sunnis.

The Badr brigades are the military wing of the influential Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq party, which split from the Dawa party amid the political fallout from the Dujail attacks.