BAGHDAD, 6 December 2005 — Saddam Hussein said yesterday he was not afraid to die, after witnesses at his trial described the horrors of his rule, including use of a human meat grinder.

“You cannot continue playing these games,” said Iraq’s former dictator, who had repeatedly interrupted witnesses and the judge. “If you want my neck you can have it.” Saddam yelled at one of two witnesses who testified: “Don’t interrupt me, son.”

The chief judge eventually adjourned the trial until today after a highly charged session in which two men became the first witnesses to face Saddam in court.

Ahmad Hassan Mohammed Al-Dujaili, 38, recounted how he and his family were seized and tortured after a 1982 attempt on the ousted leader’s life in the Shiite town of Dujail. Hassan, who risked reprisals by letting his face appear on television as he gave evidence, said they were taken to an intelligence building in Baghdad run by Barzan Ibrahim Al-Tikriti, Saddam’s half-brother and former intelligence chief.

Tikriti, one of eight men charged with crimes against humanity, yelled at Hassan: “He should act in the cinema.” After chaotic procedural wrangling, during which former US Attorney-General Ramsey Clark led a defense walkout over threats to the lawyers and a challenge to the legitimacy of the court, Hassan’s testimony brought the charges chillingly to life.

“I swear by God, I walked by a room and... saw a grinder with blood coming out of it and human hair underneath,” Hassan told the court. During the testimony, Barzan, sitting behind Saddam in the dock, interrupted Hassan, shouting: “It’s a lie!”

Hassan said: “My brother was given electric shocks while my 77-year-old father watched... One man was shot in the leg... Some were crippled because they had arms and legs broken.”

Saddam and his co-defendants are charged with killing 148 men from Dujail after the assassination attempt.

The trial began Oct. 19 but was swiftly adjourned for 40 days to give the defense more time to prepare and again last week to let two of the defendants find new attorneys following the killing of a second defense lawyer last month.

In his testimony, Hassan described seeing Barzan in Dujail on the day of the attack in July 1982, wearing red cowboy boots and blue jeans, and carrying a sniper rifle. He said Saddam was there as well, and related an episode involving a boy of 15.

“Saddam said to him, ‘Do you know who I am?’” Hassan said, adding that when the boy answered “Saddam,” the president picked up an ashtray and hit him on the head.

Saddam’s chief lawyer, Khalil Dulaimi, argued with the witness and accused him of lying, saying he’d implicated a former government minister who had died in 1979.

As the bespectacled prosecutor was asking questions, Saddam’s temper flared. “Hey, you in the glasses, don’t you recognize your leader of 30 years?” he shouted.

The second witness in the case, Juwaad Al-Juwaad, said his 16-year-old brother was detained and executed after the assassination attempt in Dujail.

Defense lawyer Dulaimi asked the witness how he could possibly identify anybody when he was aged only 10 at the time.