A smiling and relaxed Saddam, who has repeatedly dismissed the US-backed court as a farce and faces death by hanging if found guilty, told the chief prosecutor after he finished his closing arguments: “Well done.”

Prosecutors also requested the death penalty for Saddam’s half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan and the former chief judge of Saddam’s Revolutionary Court, Awad Hamed al-Bander.

Saddam, Barzan, Ramadan, Bander and four local Baath party officials face charges of crimes against humanity for their roles in the killings, torture and executions that followed an attempt on the Iraqi leader’s life in the village of Dujail.

“The prosecution demand that the court impose the heaviest penalties on those defendants who spread corruption on earth and where not even trees escape their oppression, so we demand the court impose the death penalty,” chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi told chief Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman.

Eight months into a tumultuous trial marred by the killings of two defence lawyers, the resignation of a judge and tirades from the defendants, prosecutors presented their final statements in a heavily-fortified Baghdad courtroom. Rahman later adjourned the trial until July 10, when the defence team should deliver its final remarks. Once final statements are in, a five-judge panel is expected to adjourn to consider a verdict.

Any sentence of execution for the former Iraqi president could be delayed by appeals and possibly up to a dozen other trials for war crimes and genocide.

Saddam has admitted he ordered trials that led to executions of Dujail villagers, but said it was his legal right to do so because he was the head of state at a time of war with neighbouring Iran.

In a 45-minute statement, Moussawi said Saddam personally ordered Barzan to launch the crackdown in Dujail.

Following the attempt on Saddam’s life by gunmen who opened fire on his motorcade during a presidential visit, planes bombed Dujail, killing nine people, he said.

Families were detained and tortured at a Baath headquarters in Baghdad where 36 died, and 399 women, children and old men were sent to a detention centre in the desert without trial.

“The military operations that followed the attempt were a reprisal, and excessive force was used as a response to this simple incident,” he said. He said the 148 villagers executed at Bander’s court on Saddam’s orders “never attended the court room and some of them were killed during the investigation.” Prosecutors asked the court to reduce the punishment against three local Baath officials and that a fourth one be let go.

<B>Al-Qaeda-linked group abducted the US soldiers in Iraq </B>

A key Iraqi militant body linked to al Qaeda said yesterday it had abducted two American soldiers near Yusufiya, in the same region where the US military reported two of its men went missing last week. “Your brothers in the military wing of the Mujahideen Shura Council kidnapped two American soldiers near Yusufiya,” the group said in a statement posted on the Internet. “We will provide you with more details about the incident in the next coming days”. US and Iraqi forces are searching for two US soldiers who went missing on Friday after an attack on a checkpoint near Yusufiya south of Baghdad that killed another soldier. Divers searched the Euphrates River and US aircraft combed the surrounding area near Yusufiya, an al Qaeda stronghold south of Baghdad. “The American army, using different kinds of machines and armour, raided the area where the incident took place but the army of ‘the world’s strongest country’ returned without success, humiliated,” said the statement which was posted on a Web site often used by Islamist militants. The statement, whose authenticity could not be verified, said the event showed “the weakness of US intelligence”. The posting did not provide any proof of the kidnapping. Iraqi militant groups have often posted pictures of identification cards of hostages or issued video tapes of them. The Council, an umbrella body composed of al Qaeda in Iraq and some other Sunni Islamist militant groups, has pledged to continue a holy war against US-led forces despite the killing of the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.