Special report: Trial of Saddam Hussein     

    BAGHDAD, March 1 (Xinhuanet) -- Trial of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and his seven aides resumed in a Baghdad court on Wednesday with absence of Saddam's chief attorney who walked out during Tuesday's session.

Trial of Saddam Hussein and his seven aides resumed in a Baghdad court on Wednesday.(Photo: Xinhua/Reuters)

    Saddam, who looked quiet, was the first of the eight defendantsto enter the court as the session started at 11:30 a.m. (1030 GMT)on the second straight day of hearings this week that focused on documents presented by chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi.

    Saddam's chief attorney Khalilal-Dulaimi was absent from the court after a walk-out at Tuesday's session against trial proceedings.

    During Wednesday's session, al-Moussawi presented several documents, one of which, dated to March 31, 1987, said that the last batch on the death list in the northern village of Dujail had been executed.

    Saddam and seven of his high-profile defendants are facing charges of crimes against humanity, including the killing of 148 Shiite men in Dujail after a failed assassination attempt on Saddam in 1982.

    The defendants questioned the prosecution documents, all dated back to the mid-1980s, when al-Moussawi read some excerpts related to the Dujail case.

    Abdullah Kahdim Erowayid al-Mashaikhi and his son Mizher al-Mashaikhi, who were both local Baath party official in Dujail,openly threw doubt on the authenticity of the signatures on the documents allegedly by them and made several requests to go into details of the files.

    Mizher insisted that the signatures were not real and could not possibly come out of "a simple man with primary school education"like himself.

    Saddam looked at the copies of the files shown on a screen in front of him carefully as al-Moussawi claimed that he had issued 127 death warrants related to the Dujail case.

    The ex-president accused the chief prosecutor of "jumping to conclusions on every document presented and abolishing links between investigation and conclusion."

    Trying to defuse the tensions raised between Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim and the chief judge during past sessions, Saddam said, "The tense situation is not to the benefit of the court, defendants, history and fact."He advised the chief judge to be more patient than defendants in order to restore order at the court.

    If convicted of the charges, Saddam and his aides might face the death penalty. Enditem