Prosecutors in the trial of Saddam Hussein questioned the former head of the Revolutionary Court on Thursday over the death sentences of 148 Shiites in the 1980s, a central point in the case against the ousted Iraqi leader and members of his regime.

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein testifies during cross-examination at his trial in Baghdad on Wednesday April 5, 2006. Hussein said he approved death sentences of Shiites in the 1980s because evidence showed they were involved in an assassination attempt against him. [AP]

Awad al-Bandar, one of Saddam's seven co-defendants who testified last month, was called back for further questioning about documents from the 1984 trial. Wearing a red checkered traditional headdress, al-Bandar stood alone in the defendants' pen before chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman and the prosecutors.

Saddam was not in the courtroom. A day earlier, the former president was cross-examined by prosecutors for six hours for the first time in the six-month trial.

Prosecutors are seeking to show that al-Bandar's Revolutionary Court gave the 148 Shiites only a cursory trial on charges they tried to assassinate Saddam in 1982, and that Saddam approved their death sentences even though many had nothing to do with the shooting attack on him in the town of Dujail.

In his testimony Wednesday, Saddam insisted he was convinced that the 148 were guilty, but evaded questions about how closely he had looked at the evidence.

Asked if he had read the evidence against the Shiites before referring them for trial, Saddam replied, "If the constitution requires the head of state to review documents before referral, then I abided by it." Pressed by prosecutors on the point, he snapped, "I have answered."

He said he had the right to question the judgment after the defendants were sentenced to death, but he "was convinced the evidence that was presented was sufficient" to approve the sentences.

Saddam and the seven former members of his regime face possible execution by hanging if found guilty over the crackdown launched against residents of Dujail after Saddam's motorcade was shot at as it passed through the Shiite town in 1982. Hundreds ¡ª including women and children ¡ª were imprisoned, some of them saying they were tortured, and 148 Shiites were killed.

The defendants have insisted their actions were a legal response to the assassination attempt. But prosecutors have sought to show the sweep went far beyond the actual attackers.

On Wednesday, chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi asked Saddam if he was aware that 28 of the Shiites sentenced to death were under 18 and presented identity cards showing some were minors. Prosecutors have said an 11-year-old boy was among those killed.

"I sentence an underage Iraqi to death? I wouldn't do it even if you were to carve my eyes out," Saddam said.

But he also questioned whether it was his responsibility to check the IDs of the defendants to see how old they were, and argued that identity cards can easily be forged. "You can buy IDs like this in the market," he said.

Wednesday's session was the first opportunity prosecutors have had to directly question Saddam on the charges. The former leader cooperated with the court at times, grinning at the chief prosecutor and reciting poetry to the judge, whom he casually addressed by his first name as "Mr. Raouf."

But at times, he was sharp and combative, bickering with Abdel-Rahman and denouncing the court as "illegitimate." He attempted to tap into Sunni resentment of the Shiite-led Interior Ministry, which many Sunnis accuse of backing death squads.

The Interior Ministry "kills thousands of people on the streets and tortures them," Saddam said.

"Don't venture into political matters," Chief Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman admonished him.

This week, the tribunal indicted Saddam and six former members of his regime on separate charges of genocide for a campaign against Kurds in the 1980s that killed an estimated 100,000 people.

A separate trial will be held on those charges, possibly beginning in 45 days, though some officials have questioned whether the tribunal will be able to conduct two trials simultaneously. In any case, it means a drawn-out legal process amid continued violence and political wrangling over the formation of Iraq's next government.