BAGHDAD - Iraqi guards at the trial of Saddam Hussein manhandled a Lebanese lawyer from the court on Monday, ignoring her loud protests, as witnesses prepared to give testimony for the former president's co-accused.

Defence lawyer Bushra Khalil threw her robe as she was bundled from the chamber by guards.

(1st row L to R) Abdullah Kadhem Ruaid, Mohammad Azawi Ali, Saddam Hussein, (2nd row L to R) Awad Hamed al-Bander, Mizher Abdullah Rawed, (3rd row L to R) Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Ali Daeem Ali, Taha Yassin Ramadan attend their trial held in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone May 22, 2006. The trial of Saddam Hussein and seven others accused of crimes against humanity resumed in Baghdad on Monday, with defence witnesses for some of the more senior defendants expected to take the stand. [Reuters]

Amid the clamour, Saddam stood to object and declared: "I am the president of Iraq", only to be told sharply by Judge Raouf Abdul Rahman: "No you are a defendant."

Khalil objected at the start of the hearing to her ejection from court in a previous session. After the argument with Abdul Rahman rose in pitch, he ordered her removed from court and described her behaviour as "an insult to justice".

Proceedings in the heavily-guarded courtroom in Baghdad's Green Zone, which have seen occasional such ejections in the past, then moved ahead with two witnesses speaking in favour of Baathist judge Awad-al Bandar.

Following testimony last week for the four local officials on trial with Saddam, Bandar was the first of the four senior Baath party figures on trial to present defence witnesses.

One man, speaking openly without the protection of a screen used by many other witnesses, praised Bandar's running of the Revolutionary Court that sentenced 148 Shi'ite men to death over an assassination attempt on Saddam at Dujail in 1982.

"Did I ever kick any defence lawyer out of court?" Bandar asked his witness, a former court employee, making ironic capital of the earlier scenes of uproar.

"No. You never did," witness Murshid Mohammed Jasim said, turning to the judge to add: "He always gave the lawyers time to speak and was never angry with them, whatever they did."

He also said the charge that Bandar ordered 32 Dujail youths under 18 to be executed in defiance of Iraqi law was untrue.

A week ago, all eight defendants were charged with crimes against humanity over the killings and detentions, deportations and tortures to which 399 people from Dujail were subjected in reprisal for the attempt on Saddam's life.

Saddam refused to plead and like the others a not guilty plea was entered for him.
Witnesses were also expected to be heard on Monday for Saddam's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, his then intelligence chief. Barzan complained to the judge that some of his witnesses could not appear because they were in a U.S. military prison in southern Iraq.

Also on trial is former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan.