Baghdad: Saddam Hussein returned to court on Wednesday and immediately accused the Interior Ministry of killing and torturing thousands of Iraqis, remarks likely to inflame sectarian tensions.
The toppled leader, who could face a death sentence, remained defiant one day after the court announced that he would face new charges of genocide against the ethnic Kurdish population in the late 1980s.
He could face another trial as early as next month, potentially leading to a drawn-out legal process.
Saddam refused to sign documents, saying that only an international court would be fair, and denounced the Interior Ministry as he faced cross examination for the first time.
"It's the side that kills thousands in the street and tortures them ...," he said, criticising the Shi'ite-run ministry, which is accused of running death squads by the Sunni Arabs who were dominant when Saddam ruled Iraq.
When the judge interrupted him, Saddam said: "If you're scared of the Interior Minister, he doesn't scare my dog."
Interior Minister Bayan Jabor is a hate figure among Sunnis, who accuse him of waging a sectarian war against them and allowing Shi'ite militias to run hit squads with impunity. He denies the accusations.
Saddam was the only defendant in the chamber, which he has dominated with tirades questioning the court's legitimacy and urging Iraqis to rise up against US occupation troops.
After chief judge Raouf Abdel Rahman dismissed Saddam's comments that it was a trial under occupation, one of his lawyers pointed across the court room to an American.
Abdel Rahman threatened to arrest her for 24 hours and then cut off the sound system as soon as Saddam started to recite poetry.
Genocide charges
Saddam and seven co-accused are charged with killing 148 Shi'ite Muslims after an attempt on his life in the town of Dujail in 1982.
He has said he was acting within the law against people who tried to kill him.
The special tribunal trying Saddam said on Tuesday that he would face charges of genocide against the Kurds, who accuse him of killing more than 100,000 people and destroying thousands of their villages in the late 1980s in the Anfal campaign.
Saddam sat in the chamber in a dark suit and white shirt as his emotional lawyer argued his case.
He engaged in verbal sparring with the judge, whose impartiality has been questioned because he is a Kurd from the village of Halabja, where Saddam's forces were accused of killing 5,000 people in a poison gas attack in 1988.
Saddam sarcastically referred to Abdel Rahman as "Sir Raouf".
"I am the judge," said Abdel Rahman. Saddam responded: "I don't know, I have to make sure."
Saddam reminded the court of his assassination attempt on former Iraqi leader Abdel-Karim Kassem in Baghdad in 1959. He fled the country after being wounded in the leg, one of the heroic tales passed down through generations by his supporters.
"God is greatest ... President Saddam Hussein, the holy warrior, the hero," he said.
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