The ousted leader returned to court for the latest hearing in his genocide trial, which continued in Baghdad following a two-week adjournment, despite a boycott by Saddam's defence lawyers.
The court heard harrowing evidence from four Kurdish villagers who told of appalling conditions at a prison camp in northern Iraq where wild dogs feasted on human remains and children dropped dead from disease.
The former strongman and six of his top officials are accused of ordering the 1988 Anfal campaign by Iraqi forces in which, prosecutors say, 182,000 Kurds were killed in death camps, bombings and poison gas attacks.
A Kurdish woman spoke softly from behind a curtain to protect her identity in a country still wracked by murders and political violence, three-and-a-half years after Saddam was overthrown by a US-led invasion.
Haltingly, she told of how Iraqi forces attacked her village in northern Iraq's Kurdish region in April 1988 when she was 13 years old and rounded up members of her family, including her brother and his wife and children.
"I know what happened to my family. They were buried alive," she told the court. The prosecutor said that her relatives' identity cards had been found at a mass grave near Samawa, in southern Iraq.
All four witnesses gave detailed accounts of how their families were rounded up following attacks on their villages by Iraqi security forces. They were taken to Nigrat Salman prison camp, where many died of disease and hunger.
"When we were allowed to go to the bath, we used to do it in front of the soldiers because the place was surrounded by razor-wire," the first said.
"I would like to ask Saddam a question. What was the guilt of women and children?" she demanded, her voice sometimes cracking but growing in confidence as her testimony continued.
Saddam sat in the dock in his trademark dark double-breasted suit, sometimes looking uninterested, ignoring proceedings and reading the Koran.
A second witness, 42-year-old farmer Abdul-Hadi Mohammed, said his village had been destroyed and many of his relatives dragged off.
His pregnant wife, his mother, two brothers, two sisters and four nephews are still missing, he said, while his mother-in-law had returned.
"She told me of a black dog that had dug up the body of my mother and eaten her," he said.
Prosecutors showed the court identity papers belonging to his missing relatives, who were found in a mass grave.
A third witness, who appeared in open court, but asked not to be named, said: "My husband lost his mind in Nigrat Salman. There were still whip marks on his back a year after our detention.
"My daughter died in prison while two sons were buried in mass graves."
Judge Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah halted hearings two weeks ago in order to give defendants time to arrange for lawyers, after a series of rowdy court sessions was marred by a boycott by the entire defence team.
But Saddam's lawyers said at the weekend that they will maintain their boycott, in protest at what they said was Iraqi government interference in the case, particularly the sacking of a former chief judge.
Seven lawyers appointed by the Iraqi High Tribunal attended today's session to act for the defence.
Saddam has in the past refused to recognise court appointed counsel and has often been thrown out of court for being disruptive.
Saddam and one other defendant, his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, a former military commander who became notorious as "Chemical Ali", are accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The remaining defendants are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity and all seven men in the dock face the death penalty if convicted.
While the Anfal case continues, another panel of judges is preparing to give its verdict in a previous trial against Saddam and another group of former aides alleged to have ordered the killing of 148 Shi'ite civilians.
The court is due to convene on October 16 to set a date for the verdict in the case -- dubbed the Dujail trial after the small town north of Baghdad where the victims were seized -- and Saddam could be sentenced to death.
If he is and loses an automatic appeal, judges will have to decide whether to press ahead with the Anfal trial and several other cases relating to alleged crimes during his 24 years in office, or whether to execute him right away.