Saddam trial attack plan 'foiled'

Saddam Hussein denies the murder charges against him

Iraqi security forces have thwarted a plan to attack the trial of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Iraq's national security adviser said.

Muwaffaq al-Rubaie said militants had planned to target the court building in Baghdad's highly protected Green Zone when the trial resumed on Monday.

According to Mr Rubaie's statement insurgents intended to fire Soviet-made rockets at the building.

Saddam Hussein is being tried over an alleged massacre in Dujail in 1982.

The former Iraqi leader denies the charges.

Previous attacks

Mr Rubaie said the militant group calls itself the Brigades of the Revolution of 1920.

No further details were given in the statement and it is not known whether anyone has been arrested.

Just before the hearings resumed last Monday at least one mortar was fired into the Green Zone.

And last Sunday, on the eve of the trial re-opening Iraqi police announced that eight people had been detained over a plot to kill the judge who prepared the case against Saddam Hussein.

The men, arrested on 23 November in Kirkuk, northern Iraq, were allegedly acting on the orders of Saddam Hussein's former deputy, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.

The trial has also been hit by the killing of two defence lawyers.

One of the five judges is also expected to stand down on Monday after learning that one of the men on trial may have been responsible for the death of his brother.

Saddam Hussein and seven other top ranking officials from the ousted regime are on trial over the 1982 massacre of Shias in Dujail.

The charge says that 148 people, mostly men, were killed in the largely Shia town, some 60km (35 miles) north of Baghdad, after a failed assassination attempt against the former leader.

Saddam Hussein could face execution if found guilty.