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Saddam Hussein's second trial opened with a characteristic show of defiance Monday.

The enraged former Iraqi leader shouted at prosecutors and refused to enter a plea to charges of genocide and war crimes connected to his scorched-earth offensive against the Kurds nearly two decades ago.

The trial opens a new legal chapter for the ousted president, who once again faces a possible death penalty, this time for the killing of tens of thousands of Kurds during the Iraqi army's "Operation Anfal" Arabic for "spoils of war."

The 1987-88 crackdown was aimed at crushing independence-minded Kurdish militias and clearing all Kurds from the northern region along the border with Iran. Saddam accused the Kurds of helping Iran in its war with Iraq.

Villages were razed and countless young men disappeared, according to survivors.

"It's time for humanity to know... the magnitude and scale of the crimes committed against the people of Kurdistan," the lead prosecutor for the Anfal case, Munqith al-Faroon, said in his opening statement.

"Entire villages were razed to the ground, as if killing the people wasn't enough... Wives waited for their husbands, families waited for their children to return but to no avail," he said, showing the court photos of the bodies of dead women and children.

The prosecution also accuses the army of using prohibited mustard gas and nerve agents in the campaign and a map of northern Iraq in the courtroom had red stickers on locations where the weapons were allegedly used.

But the trial does not deal with the most notorious gassing the March 1988 attack on Halabja that killed an estimated 5,000 Kurds. That incident will be part of a separate investigation by the Iraqi High Tribunal.

Saddam became furious when prosecutors spoke of Kurdish women being raped in prison during the campaign.

"I can never accept the claim that an Iraqi woman was raped while Saddam is president," he shouted, banging on a podium in front of him and pointing a finger at the prosecutors. "How could I walk with my head up?"

"An Iraqi woman raped while Saddam is the leader?" he bellowed over and over in a rage.

It was one of the few outbursts in a session that was generally calm and business-like unlike the many arguments and disturbances of his last trial.

Yet Saddam, dressed in the same outfit of a black suit and white shirt that he wore throughout his first trial, showed the same defiance and rejection of the tribunal.

His top co-defendant, his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," also refused to enter a plea.

For Kurds, the launch of the trial was their chance to taste vengeance just as the Dujail trial was for Shi'ites.

More than 1,000 survivors and relatives of victims of the Anfal campaign demonstrated in the northern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah on Monday, demanding death for Saddam.

Khadhija Salih, a housewife who lost five brothers and sisters in the crackdown and spent time in prison herself, said: "Today I will have my justice as I will see Saddam in the court."

Along with Saddam and Majid also on trial are Sabir al-Douri, former director of military intelligence; Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai, who was head of the Iraqi army's 1st Corps, which carried out the Anfal operation; and Taher Tawfiq al-Ani, then Mosul governor.

The two other defendants are Hussein Rashid Mohammed, who was deputy director of operations for the Iraqi military, and Farhan Mutlaq Saleh, then head of military intelligence's Eastern regional office.

Iraqi officials and rights groups say the precise death count from Operation Anfal is difficult to determine because of the attacks' scale. Estimates range from around 50,000 to well over 100,000.

(China Daily August 22, 2006)