The judge who oversaw the trial of 148 Shia men accused of plotting to assassinate Saddam Hussein in 1982 told the court today he had personally issued a death warrant and insisted it was legal.
"They attacked the president of the republic and they confessed," Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, said in testimony before the judges trying him, Saddam and six others for crimes against humanity.
The killing of the 148 men from the Shia town of Dujail after the assassination attempt is at the heart of the case.
Saddam, who was not in court today, said during his last appearance on March 1 that he had ordered the trial under Bandar which led to the executions and also the destruction of Dujail farms but said this had been an entirely legitimate procedure.
"Where is the crime?" the former president demanded to know.
Bandar, the first of the four high-ranking defendants to give testimony in his own defence, followed that argument, accusing the dead men of being part of a plot by the Iranian-backed Dawa party to kill Saddam during Iraq's war with Iran.
"It was provoked by Iran. They were members of Dawa. The leadership of Dawa was in Iran," Bandar said.
The present leader of Dawa, a Shia Islamist party, is Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, whose government has pressed for the Dujail trial to move forward rapidly.
"The target was the head of state and we were in a state of war with Iran," Bandar said. "He was the commander of the armed forces ... The court took two weeks. The 148 men had confessed.
"It is all in the files."
In a phase of the trial that began yesterday, four local Baath party officials from Dujail had already made their appearances - three of them contesting sworn statements that the prosecution said they had made in pre-trial proceedings.
One of these, appearing today, said he could not read or write and denied making a statement signed by him in which he purportedly said he saw Saddam's half-brother and his vice president in Dujail when alleged plotters were being rounded up.
"The judge wrote this. I didn't say it. It is a lie. I can't read or write," Mohammed Azawi Ali al-Marsoumi told the court.
Saddam may testify later today or, more likely, in the coming days before the trial adjourns for several weeks.