Executing plotters against Saddam was legal

Awad Ahmad al-Bander al-Sadun, the former head of Iraq's revolutionary tribunal who is on trial with Saddam and six other defendants over the killing of the 148 inhabitants of Dujail in the 1980s, said he was acting within the law.

The trial resumed Monday amid new fears of sectarian violence after six car bombs ripped through four market places in Baghdad's Shia district of Sadr City on Sunday, killing at least 46 people and wounding over 200 in Iraq's worst blood-letting so far this year.