Senator criticises Saddam trial

Arlen Specter said the court should be tougher with Saddam Hussein

A senior US senator has criticised the handling of the trial of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, just before meeting the judge heading the court.

Arlen Specter, chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was disappointed the court had allowed Saddam "to dominate the proceedings".

Sen Specter said he would urge Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin to quell Saddam's outbursts by holding him in contempt.

Saddam has declared he was tortured and called the US denial of this "lies".

The former Iraqi president and seven others face charges over the killing of 148 people in Dujail in 1982. They all deny responsibility.

'A butcher'

Sen Specter, a Republican, is the first member of the US Congress to meet Judge Rizgar.

Speaking ahead of the interview in Baghdad, he told reporters he felt the court should keep a tighter rein on the trial's progress.

Saddam's torture claims Trial timeline

"You have a butcher who has butchered his own people, a torturer who has tortured his own people," the Associated Press news agency quotes him as saying.

"The evidence ought to be presented in a systematic way which would show that there's been quite an accomplishment in taking [Saddam] out as opposed to letting him be a blusterbun and control the proceedings."

He said he would press the judge to use international and US law to hold Saddam in contempt or have him tried in his absence.

The BBC's John Simpson in Baghdad says Judge Rizgar's refusal to respond with force to Saddam Hussein's outbursts is a sign of strength rather than failure.

To treat the former Iraqi leader roughly would be to risk making him seem a martyr, our correspondent says.

Sen Specter also said he had been told by a US general in Iraq that more troop reductions were in the pipeline.

Maj Gen Timothy Donovan said the withdrawals announced last week by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been under discussion since the spring and that more were being planned, the senator said.