At least 30 people died every day in Saddam Hussein's prisons, a Kurdish witness said on Tuesday as the trial resumed of the ousted Iraqi president and six others on genocide charges.

Mutalib Mohammed Salman, a 78-year-old man told the court Tuesday how he and his fellow villagers were rounded up during the 1988 'Anfal' campaign and shipped off to a desert prison in southern Iraq. "One day I counted 20 dead bodies as I went over to see two of my relatives in the prison after I heard that they were sick," he told the court, according to AFP. "When I reached them, I found them dead."

Meanwhile, one of the biggest points of contention between the defendants and the court may have been resolved, when the judge started the trial by agreeing to a request from a defendant to allow the return of their legal team.

For the past month, the defense team has boycotted the trial in protest at alleged interference by the Iraqi government, and Judge Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah has assigned seven court-appointed lawyers to conduct the defence.

"Your honor we talked to our lawyers and they want to attend," said former defence minister Sultan Hashim al-Tai. "It is in our benefit for them to attend." After the judge agreed to the request testimony resumed on atrocities allegedly committed in the Anfal campaign which prosecutors say killed 182,000 Kurds in death camps, bombings and gas attacks.

Salman ended his testimony with a plaintive call familiar to the ears of court observers: "I demand Saddam to tell me about the fate of my relatives, the 33 of my relatives who were 'Anfalized'," he said.

On Monday, the brother of chief prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon was murdered in front of his wife while returning to pick up some possessions from the west Baghdad home they had abandoned amid the sectarian strife rocking the capital.

© 2006 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)