Saddam Hussein's trial over the killings of some 150 Shia in the 1980s degenerated into a shouting match on Monday after one of the fallen Iraqi dictator's female lawyers was thrown out of court.
Lebanese lawyer Bushra Khalil had returned to the courtroom after a long absence following her expulsion in early April by Judge Rauf Abdel Rahman for disrupting the proceedings.
But an argument immediately erupted after the trial resumed, and the judge ordered her thrown out again. She was escorted from the courtroom screaming, and tossing her robes at the judge, drawing protests from Saddam and other lawyers.
"You have to stick to the rules," the judge told her. "You are a lawyer, you should behave by the rules."
As Khalil was being removed, Saddam rose from the dock and gave the defiant statement that has become his signature at each session.
"I am Saddam Hussein. I am the president of Iraq," he said with a raised fist.
"You were president, now you are the defendant," retorted the judge.
Another defence lawyer complained about Khalil's ejection, saying: "There is no law that gives the court the right to throw the lawyer out. We are defending these people, who were the honour of the nation. You have no right to insult a lawyer."
"Calm down! Don't shout," judge Abdel Rahman retorted.
Saddam and his seven co-defendants face charges of crimes against humanity including murder and torture over the deaths of 148 Shiites and could face execution by hanging if found guilty.
Former revolutionary court judge Awad al-Bandar who sentenced the Shiites from the village of Dujail to death after an attempt on Saddam's life there in 1982 was among the eight defendants in court.
A half-brother of Saddam, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti, testified for both the former president and another half-brother who is also in the dock, Barzan al-Takriti, a former Iraqi intelligence chief.
"When I was in the security department, I was a lot tougher than Barzan in my job," he said of his full brother Barzan.
Sabawi, who was arrested in February 2005 near the Syrian border and accused of financing the insurgency, had words of praise for Iraq's former strongman. "In his childhood, he was not vengeful or hateful ... Two days after the assassination attempt, I talked to him ... He was not upset, he was not furious, unlike me," the defence witness said.
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