Iraq's prime minister said Saddam Hussein could be hanged by the end of the year after being sentenced to death for crimes against humanity.
The toppled leader returned to court today to hear Kurdish witnesses in a second trial describe what prosecutors say was a campaign of genocide.
Saddam was convicted on Sunday of the killings of 148 Shia villagers from Dujail after a failed assassination bid in 1982.
The case for genocide against Kurds in 1988 is still hearing prosecution evidence and could last well into next year.
Defence lawyers in the Dujail case have 30 days to make submissions to the appeals court, which then reviews the documents in the case and makes its decision.
One observer of the court cited sources inside the Tribunal as saying an appeal ruling could be timed for some point next year to coincide with the end of the genocide trial so Kurds too would feel their grievances had been heard.
But in an interview with the BBC shown today, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who heads a Shia- and Kurdish-dominated government, indicated it could be much sooner.
"The law gives a month for the appeal process and then gives a month for the implementation of the sentence after the decision is taken. And I think the court is determined to pursue this case that they are looking at, but we will not interfere," Maliki said, according to a BBC translation of his remarks.
Elsewhere a defence lawyer in Saddam Hussein's genocide trial in Baghdad today demanded that the court investigate the alleged ransacking of the defence team's office in the US-controlled Green Zone.
Counsel Badee Izzat Aref issued the demand as the trial resumed with Saddam and the six co-defendants present. They have been on trial since August for their roles in a crackdown against Kurdish insurgents in the late 1980s.
About 180,000 people, mostly civilians, died in the crackdown, codenamed Operation Anfal, the prosecution has said.
Counsel Badee Izzat Aref
Mr Aref told the court that intruders last month damaged and stole dozens of documents, undermining the defence's effort in the trial.
Chief judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa ordered the prosecution to give a new set of documents to the defence.
"I demand the opening of an investigation on the American side because the area of the offices is guarded by the Americans, who would shoot anybody who comes near," Mr Aref said. It was the first time that Mr Aref appeared in the court since September 21st when the defence team announced a boycott of the trial to protest the court's rejection of many of their motions.