After a five-week delay following the assassination of two of the trial’s defence lawyers, a moment of silence was observed in the courtroom in memory of the slain men.
Their deaths led to calls for a boycott of proceedings from the defence lawyers representing Saddam and his seven co-defendants amid complaints of death threats and inadequate security.
Despite agreeing to continue with the trial, at least four defence lawyers failed to turn up, according to the BBC news service, and safety concerns were heightened after a mortar was fired into the Green Zone where the courtroom is located.
“There’s no adequate protection for them whatsoever – they’ve got families that they have to worry about, they’ve got investigators that have to go to difficult and dangerous places,” legal defence adviser and former US Attorney-General Ramsey Clark told the BBC.
Saddam’s anger
Dressed in black trousers, a grey jacket and white shirt, Saddam Hussein was the last of the eight accused to enter the heavily guarded courtroom.
All have pleaded not guilty to charges of crimes against humanity in relation to the deaths of 148 Shi’ite Muslims from the town of Dujail in 1982.
Once inside, Saddam began a heated exchange with presiding judge Rizkar Mohammed Amin over his treatment, complaining he had to walk up four flights of stairs in shackles because the lift was not working.
Saddam was also upset that being forced to wear handcuffs made it hard for him to carry a copy of the Koran with him into court and that he was escorted by non-Iraqi guards.
The judge said he would speak to the guards but this did not appease him.
“You are the chief judge. I don’t want you to tell them. I want you to order them. They are in our country. You have the sovereignty. You are Iraqi and they are foreigners and occupiers. They are invaders. You should order them.”
Saddam’s half-brother Barzan Ihahim Hassan al-Tikriti, a former director of the feared Mukhabarat intelligence service, also lashed out, saying he had not received proper medical treatment since being diagnosed with cancer three months ago and that this amounted to “indirect murder.”
He said the judge had ignored his plea to be transferred to hospital for treatment but the judge said he had not received a letter from Barzan.
Recorded testimony
From beyond the grave, the court was shown the recorded testimony of former intelligence official, Waddah Ismail Al-Sheik.
The video showed Mr Al-Sheik seated in wheelchair, describing the events surrounding the 1982 massacre, from the US-controlled hospital where he died of cancer on October 27.
He said about 400 people were detained after an assassination attempt on Saddam Hussein, although Mr Al-Sheik estimated that only seven to a dozen gunmen had taken part in the ambush on the former leader’s convoy.
“I don’t know why so many people were arrested,” Mr Al-Sheik said, adding that Barzan had been “the one directly giving the orders.”
According to the testimony, whole families were rounded up and sent to Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison.
Co-defendant and former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan was said to have headed a committee that ordered the destruction of Dujail’s orchards, the town’s livelihood.
The orchards had been used to conceal Saddam’s attackers, Mr Al-Sheik said.
Fresh delay
Further testimony will wait until December 5, to allow time for replacements for the two assassinated defence lawyers to be found.
Ramadan has refused a court appointed lawyer offered as one of the replacements and has specifically requested that one be allowed to come from Lebanon to act in his defence.
For some Iraqis, the ongoing setbacks are causing frustration that justice is slow in coming.
“Saddam does not need witnesses or evidence. The mass graves are the biggest witness and he should be executed in order for the security situation to improve,” said Saadoun Abdul-Hassan, a Shi’ite living in Baghdad.
But in Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, the former dictator still has his supporters, including 38-year-old merchant Adnan Brazan, who see him as Iraq’s “legitimate president.”
“Those who speak about mass graves and about Dujail should go see what the new government is doing,” Mr Barzan said.
Violence mounts
When the trial reconvenes on December 5, Iraq will be 10 days away from parliamentary elections, and there are fears that insurgent violence will escalate in the leadup.
A lull in kidnappings was shattered at the weekend by the apparent capture of four Western aid workers – a Briton, an American and two Canadians.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the government was investigating the “presumed abduction” of retired professor Norman Kember and had contacted his family but had no further confirmation.
Meanwhile, three Britons of Indian origin have been killed in an ambush on a bus carrying Shi’ite pilgrims in a southern district of Baghdad.
“We were just coming and all of a sudden heard shots and immediately got down,” said an injured British woman who identified herself as Z Jafferti.
“I don’t know what happened and I couldn’t see anything.”
Ms Jafferti said she had been ill and had come to Iraq to pray at the shrines to Imam Ali and Imam Hussein.
On Tuesday, the German Foreign Minister reported that one of its citizens has been missing for five days and is believed kidnapped.
German television broadcast photographs showing a blindfolded woman and her alleged captors. The woman is believed to be the missing German.
Her name has not been released nor details on whatshe was doing in Iraq.