Saddam Hussein told his judge on Wednesday he would rather be shot than hanged if found guilty of crimes against humanity and complained of being forced to attend his controversial trial.

Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein gestures during final arguments in his trial in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone July 26, 2006. Saddam, weak from a hunger strike, said on Wednesday that he has been forced to attend his trial for crimes against humanity and that he would prefer to be shot than hung if found guilty. The defence team for the former leader and seven co-accused boycotted the latest session in a controversial trial which is approaching its conclusion. [Reuters]

"I advise you as an Iraqi, if you were in a circumstance in which you have to issue a death penalty you have to remember that Saddam is a military man, and in this case the verdict should be death by shooting not by hanging," he said.

Saddam appointed himself to head the army and never served as a soldier before taking power. So he would almost certainly face the gallows if convicted.

A U.S. official close to the court said the former Iraqi leader had broken his hunger strike, eating bread and fruit with a cola after a stormy session.

"I wrote you a petition clarifying that I don't want to come to court, but they brought me against my will ... I have been on a hunger strike since July 8," Saddam, holding a Koran, told chief judge Raouf Abdel Rahman.

The entire defence team boycotted the latest session in the trial which is approaching its conclusion.

The court was adjourned until Thursday after a court-appointed lawyer delivered the final argument for Saddam. It will be the last court proceeding until October, when a verdict is expected.

Saddam, 69, had been fed through a tube during a hunger strike to protest against what he says is an unfair trial.

The hunger strike had not taken the edge off Saddam's defiance, exhibited throughout the trial in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, home to some of his former palaces.

Although his once imposing voice was weak the former Iraqi leader, who had lost some weight, behaved angrily at times.

When the court-appointed lawyer was about to read his closing argument, Saddam interrupted him: "The argument was written by a Canadian American agent."

THREE LAWYERS KILLED

Three defence lawyers have been killed during the trial and Saddam asked Abdel Rahman: "Half my lawyers were killed. Is it too much for you to protect them?"

Saddam and seven co-defendants are charged with the killing of 148 Shi'ites after an attempt on his life in Dujail in 1982.

Saddam faces a second trial on charges of genocide against Iraq's ethnic Kurds in a month.

When the court-appointed lawyer spoke about teenagers who allegedly died under interrogation in a crackdown after the Dujail incident, the ex-president interrupted. "Is he a lawyer for Saddam Hussein or the prosecution?" he asked.

That lawyer refused to be filmed and spoke through a voice scrambler, fearful for his life in a country ravaged by sectarian violence and a Sunni Arab insurgency led by Saddam loyalists since the ex-president was toppled in 2003.

When the former Iraqi leader told the court he would inspire insurgents to drive out occupiers, Abdel Rahman said resistance fighters should not kill innocent Iraqis.

"If it is true you have fighters, make them attack the American camps not public places, markets and cafes. Tell them not to blow themselves up, to blow up the Americans."

Saddam hit back. "A thousand like you would not even terrify my finger."