BAGHDAD, Dec 22: Saddam Hussein denounced US leaders as liars at a turbulent court hearing on Thursday and his once-feared intelligence chief abused prosecutors before threatening to boycott the rest of the trial.

Iraq’s former leader, facing possible hanging if convicted, said the White House had lied to justify its 2003 invasion by saying he had chemical weapons, and had lied again on Wednesday when it denied his claim he was tortured in US custody.

He reiterated the torture allegation at Thursday’s hearing. He also accused American soldiers of stealing his watch.

Three witnesses testified about abuse they said they and other detainees had suffered in Saddam’s jails. Speaking from behind a curtain to conceal their identities, they gave long and sometimes chilling accounts of beatings and deprivation.

Saddam appeared more concerned with his own plight.

“The White House are liars,” he told the court, where he and seven others, including his half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim Al Tikriti, stand accused of crimes against humanity. “They said Iraq had chemical weapons.”

Iraq developed chemical weapons in the 1980s and used them against Iran and Iraqi Kurds. It is now thought to have destroyed its remaining stocks after the 1991 Gulf War.

Saddam said he had marks on his body to prove he had been tortured by the Americans. He did not show any marks and the judge has not so far ordered an investigation.

The White House has already dismissed his torture claim as ‘preposterous’ and was backed up on Thursday by Raed Jouhi, the Iraqi magistrate who brought the case against Saddam to court.

“We didn’t receive a single complaint of abuse from the defendants even when we asked them about their treatment,” he told reporters inside the heavily fortified Baghdad court.

“They have a constant power supply, hygiene and good food.”

US officials have said people should concentrate on the lengthy and often harrowing testimony of the witnesses rather than the former president’s headline-grabbing outbursts.

Saddam delivered his latest broadside early in the hearing, the seventh in sometimes chaotic proceedings that began on Oct. 19 and have been adjourned three times.

For most of the session, the man who ruled Iraq for 24 years sat quietly in his black leather chair at the front of the defendants’ dock while Barzan took centre stage.

Barzan accused prosecutors of having been fellow-members of Saddam’s Baath party.

“This is the biggest insult in my life, to be associated with this blood-stained party,” replied one prosecutor, who asked to be relieved of his duties because of personal insults from the dock — a request dismissed by the Kurdish judge.

Barzan then complained about the way the trial was being televised. It is being broadcast with a delay of 30 minutes to allow court officials to censor images and sound, which they have sometimes done when Saddam or Barzan have been speaking.

“If the sound is cut off once again, then I don’t know about my comrades but I personally won’t attend again,” Barzan said. “This is unjust and undemocratic.”

Later, Barzan asked the judge for permission to speak about something he said was important, and the judge ordered a closed session from which reporters were barred. Barzan did not say what he wanted to discuss.

Three witnesses testified on Thursday but, like others, said nothing directly implicating either Saddam or the other defendants in the Dujail killings.

One recalled the abuse he saw in Abu Ghraib prison.

“The beating was continuous,” he said. “They would take a group into the hallway, the guards would hit them with cables and ask the group to crawl. The women would watch this and scream because their kids were being hit.”

At one point, someone in a gallery high up in the marbled court room laughed while Saddam was speaking, prompting him to turn and point his finger in their direction.

“The lion does not care about a monkey laughing at him from a tree,” Saddam said.—Reuters