BAGHDAD, May 31 (Xinhua) -- The trial of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and seven of his co-defendants has been adjourned to June 5, following Wednesday's session in a Baghdad court.

    Chief Judge Raouf Abdul Rahman permitted the playing of two DVDs presented by the defense team at the start of Wednesday's session, the 31st since the trial was launched last October.

    One of the DVDs showed Saddam delivering a speech to people in the northern Iraqi village of Dujail, promising the residents to live in a better place after the government razed orchards there following a failed assassination attempt against Saddam near Dujail in 1982.

    The prosecution team has accused Saddam of ordering the razing in retaliation for the attack.

    The other DVD showed that a prosecution witness, who came from Dujail and testified against Saddam in early sessions, hailed the assassination attempt on Saddam's life during a rally in Dujail on July 8, 2004 to mark the failed attack which occurred on the same date in 1982.

    The witness, however, testified in December that there was no armed attack on Saddam but only a celebrative shooting to honor Saddam's visit.

    The footage also showed prosecutor Jaafar al-Mussawi attending the rally.

    But al-Mussawi vehemently denied that the man in the video was him, which prompted Rahman to order a recess.

    Mussawi requested to bring in a man that looks like him, saying he was the one who appeared in the video shown during the special memorial service in the Dujail town, which witnessed the massacre of 148 Shiites.

    "It was not me on the CD, and I request the court to allow Abdul Aziz Mohammed Bandar to enter the court because he is the one on the CD," he said.

    Bandar apparently looked like Mussawi with few differences, but Mussawi couldn't refute what the other CD showed about the two prosecutor's witnesses, Ali al-Haidari and his brother, who said that the attack on Saddam in 1982 was not an assassination attempt to crack down against the Dujail's countrymen.

    Both the chief prosecutor and the defense team threatened to sue the other side witnesses to court for false testimonies,accusing each other of lying.

    After the judge warned the defense witnesses that he would prosecute them, Saddam's half brother, former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim, squabbles with the judge for threatening the witnesses, but Chief Judge Rahman ordered Ibrahim out of the courtroom.

    The argument rose after one of the defense witnesses claimed that chief judge Mussawi tried to pay him 500 U.S. dollars to fabricate a testimony against Saddam and his aides.

    Mussawi immediately accused the defense team of coaching the witnesses.The defense also accused the prosecution of misleading the justice, demanding the trial be halted to let the court investigate the evidences and witnesses presented by the prosecution.

    Saddam and his seven co-defendants are indicted for charges of crimes against humanity including the killing of 148 Shiite men in Dujail.

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