'Shoot me if I'm convicted'

"Remember that Saddam was a soldier and that therefore, if he is condemned to death, he should be shot and not hanged," he declared, speaking of himself in the third person during his trial in Baghdad.

Judge Rauf Abdel Rahman replied simply that the Iraqi High Tribunal had not yet delivered its verdict.

Earlier, Saddam Hussein was forced on Wednesday to listen to a court-appointed lawyer defend his role in the deaths of 148 Shiite civilians, after he was brought to court against his will.

The former strongman, showing no ill-effects from his 18-day-old hunger strike, praised the insurgents fighting US forces in Iraq and refused once again to accept the authority of the Iraqi tribunal prosecuting him.

"I was brought here by force by the Americans, but I did not resist them because I have too much self-respect," he said, urging the court to excuse him, and adding that he had been brought directly from hospital.

"I refuse the lawyers that have been assigned to me, they will be considered enemies by the people," he declared. Saddam's defence team is boycotting the trial and the court has named replacement counsel to represent him.

Judge Rauf Abdel Rahman refused his request, and insisted the 68-year-old defendant remain to hear the defence case prepared on his behalf.

Saddam and seven former aides face charges of crimes against humanity relating to a crackdown on the Shiite town of Dujail following an assassination attempt on Saddam in 1982. They face the death penalty if convicted.

The ousted dictator appeared in his trademark grey business suit and did not seem to have been weakened by his protest, begun after his evening meal on July 7 in protest at the conduct of the trial and the recent murder of a defence lawyer.

"Three days ago I was taken to hospital and today I was brought here forcibly from the hospital. I was fed intravenously and by a nasal drip," he said.

Lieutenant Colonel Keir-Kevin Curry, spokesman of US detainee operations maintained that Saddam "voluntarily received nutrition through a feeding tube."

Saddam also alleged that the court-appointed defence lawyers were reading from briefs prepared by "American and Canadian spies".

"Your honour, I refuse to appear before this tribunal, but this tribunal can do as it wills," he added.