The court also heard grim testimony about conditions at Nugrat Salman, a desert prison facility in southern Iraq, where poor food and polluted water caused many Kurds who had been rounded up and sent there to fall ill and die.

Two of the four witnesses to testify on Monday spoke about a black dog that dug up and ate the bodies of dead prisoners, and one told how prison guards forced women, including young girls, to bathe in front of them while shooting over their heads.

They were the latest to take the stand to testify about Saddam's 1988 Anfal (Spoils of War) campaign against the Kurds in northern Iraq, in which prosecutors say tens of thousands were killed in poison gas attacks, bombings or executed.

"I know the fate of my family. They were buried alive," one Kurdish woman told the court. "I would like to ask Saddam a question: 'What was the guilt of women and children?'".

The court heard that identity cards belonging to five of her sisters had been found in mass graves in Samawa in south Iraq.

The woman did not say how she knew her family was buried alive, but U.S.-led forensic experts have said some victims unearthed from mass graves were still alive when they were buried, despite having been shot, most of them at close range.

Thousands of Kurds, including many women and children, were taken from their villages, executed and then dumped in mass graves in northern and southern Iraq, prosecutors say.

Saddam's trial resumed on Monday after a two-week break. Chaos reigned at the previous session, when Saddam was repeatedly ejected from the courtroom and his lawyers walked out over the sacking of the chief judge.

Saddam and his six co-accused were present on Monday, but their defence team continued to boycott the trial in protest at the government's dismissal of chief judge Abdullah al-Amiri for saying Saddam was "not a dictator".

Legal rights groups have said the dismissal could hurt the trial's credibility.

WAR CRIMES, GENOCIDE

Saddam, 69, his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majeed, and five former commanders face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their role in Anfal that prosecutors say left 182,000 ethnic Kurds dead or missing.

They all face the death penalty if found guilty. Saddam and his cousin, known as "Chemical Ali" for his alleged use of poison gas, face the additional, graver charge of genocide.

In an earlier hearing, Saddam defended his policy of crushing Kurdish rebels in the 1980s as his Sunni-led government fought a war against neighbouring Shi'ite Iran, accusing them of being "agents of Iran and Zionism".

The first witness said the Iraqi army burned her village in April 1988 and arrested her along with eight members of her family. While in prison, she said the women were forced to shower in front of soldiers. She was 13 years old at the time.

"I saw with my own eyes many people, including a child, who died because of shortages of food and polluted water," she said.

A second witness, Abdul-Hadi Abdullah Mohammed, a farmer wearing traditional Kurdish dress, said he had not seen his pregnant wife, mother, two brothers and two sisters, and four of their children since Iraqi forces destroyed his village in 1988.

He later learnt that his mother had fallen ill and died in Nugrat Salman, while the identity cards of one sister and a brother had been found in mass graves in Samawa.

He said his mother-in-law, who was also detained, told him his mother's body had been dug up and eaten by the black dog, which also featured in the first witness's testimony.

An elderly Kurdish woman who did not want to be identified said her year-old daughter had died in prison while her two sons had disappeared, believed buried in mass graves. Her husband had "lost his mind" after being detained in Nugrat Salman, she said.

Saddam is awaiting a verdict in a separate trial for the deaths of Shi'ite villagers killed after a failed assassination attempt on his life in 1982. The court trying Saddam in that case is due to reconvene on October 16.