Prosecutor for hanging Saddam promptly if found guilty

Saddam is on trial for crimes against humanity in connection with the killing of 148 villagers from Dujail, north of Baghdad, after he escaped an assassination attempt there in 1982.

As the trial resumed after an 11-day suspension, just one of the accused, Mizher Abdullah Kadam al-Roweed, a small-time former Baath party official from Dujail, was in court to offer testimony as to his role in the massacre.

All the defence lawyers also attended the hearing, the 15th since the trial began in October.

Speaking just hours earlier on Iraqia state-television, the Iraqi High Tribunal's chief prosecutor, Jaafar Mussawi, said Saddam would hang immediately without undergoing further trials if found guilty and sentenced to death in the present case.

"If the court passes a death sentence on any of the defendants in the Dujail case, the law is clear, the sentence must be carried out within 30 days following the appeal," Mussawi said.

"As for other cases (in which they have been charged), the court will only judge living defendants as those executed cannot be tried," he added.