Former Enron chief executive officer Jeffrey Skilling angrily ripped into government prosecutors at his criminal trial yesterday, calling their case against him a deliberate effort to "rewrite history."

In his fourth day on the witness stand at his trial alongside former chairman and chief executive Kenneth Lay, Mr Skilling grew agitated as his lawyer Daniel Petrocelli led him through a series of questions about the criminal indictment lodged by the US Department of Justice's Enron Task Force.

"I think they have purposely not looked at facts they should have looked at if they wanted to come to a more balanced and accurate conclusion," Mr Skilling said.

Mr Skilling said he was devastated by Enron's demise, but he reiterated his contention that the company was healthy in the months before it sank into the then-largest-ever US bankruptcy in December 2001.

"I bled Enron blue," Mr Skilling said, referring to the Houston company's corporate colors.

"I know there are a lot of people at Enron Corporation that will never recover from what happened," he continued.

"But I think there was a lot of damage done to people subsequent to that that was not a result of facts that really happened, but as a result of the rewriting of history to accomplish certain objectives that people have that are not consistent with what happened in the company," he said.

Mr Skilling (52) faces 28 charges of conspiracy, fraud and insider trading, while Mr Lay (63) faces six counts of conspiracy and fraud. Both men face decades in prison if convicted.

On Wednesday, Mr Skilling denied that Enron used a bogus cash reserve "cookie jar" to smooth out its earnings and disguise massive trading profits.

Mr Skilling's testimony was an effort to counter claims by a former top executive that the company reaped massive profits from trading power during the California power crisis in 2000 and illicitly dumped the money into a "cookie jar" account to cover possible earnings shortfalls in the future.

"There were no cookie jar reserves at Enron," Mr Skilling said under questioning from his own lawyer, Dan Petrocelli.

Earlier in the trial, the former head of Enron's North American energy wholesale unit, David Delainey, testified that Skilling embraced him at a meeting in October 2000 after Delainey told him his unit had sharply surpassed profit targets.

The extra funds were put into an $800 million (€660 million) reserve account, he said.

Mr Skilling countered the claim that the company put the extra earnings into a reserve account illegally, saying the company's reserve accounts held only $363 million, and that money was designated to cover potential liabilities in the volatile California power markets.

Mr Skilling and Mr Lay have blamed Enron's downfall on a crisis of investor confidence that triggered a "run on the bank" after former chief financial" officer Andrew Fastow's off-balance-sheet partnerships were revealed.

Mr Fastow, who admitted to skimming tens of millions of dollars from Enron through deals done by the partnerships he operated, testified earlier in the trial that Mr Skilling knew the deals were being used to hide Enron debt and inflate earnings.

Mr Fastow's testimony was part of a plea agreement under which he agreed to a 10-year prison sentence.

Mr Skilling also described what he saw as a conspiracy by some investors to drive Enron's stock price down and their efforts to portray the company as elusive about its true financial state.

"What I was concerned about, and believe was not good, was that there was a group of people that were working together to purposely hurt the stock," he said.

Mr Skilling's direct testimony, viewed by many legal experts as the most crucial component of his defense, was expected to conclude last night.- (Reuters)