Saddam Hussein has returned to court, with the presiding judge reading the charges against him.

Saddam's seven co-accused, including his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, were not present as the proceedings started.

Monday's session will be the 23rd in the trial and defence witnesses are expected to take the stand.

Saddam and his co-defendants are accused of executing 148 Shia villagers from the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad.

The defence maintains that the defendants were applying a valid law at the time of the execution, and that the executed were Iraqi citizens plotting with Iran, at war with Iraq at the time, against their own country and leaders' life.   

According to previous statements by Najib al-Nuaimi, a former Qatari justice minister and member of Saddam's defence team, there are an estimated 30 defence witnesses.

The court must approve the witnesses presented by the defence before they give their testimony.

Another member of the defence team, Bushra al-Khalil, said she had had several meetings with Saddam in the past few weeks and that he is ready for the trial.

He is in good health, she said, and had won the respect of his guards. She said he told her that he is not afraid of death, and ready for it.

"He [Saddam] told me does not have high hopes that the final sentence will not be politically motivated," al-Khalil said.

"He is still isolated from the outer world. He did not know, for example, about the Abu Ghraib scandal until he saw the pictures presented in the court. I and my colleagues always make sure to give him an idea of what is happening around him."

Al-Khalil, a Lebanese Shia, said she is defending Saddam, a Sunni, because she believes that the campaign against him is only because he was an ambitious and patriotic leader.

"His only crime is he tried to build a strong and sophisticated country, and that does not suit the West and some countries in the region.

Al-Khalil said:  "Every time I am on board an American helicopter to go to court, or to meet the president, I look at Baghdad and the cement walls that look like snakes wrapping a prey and I am even more confident that they came here and are trying the country's leaders to curb a rising, ambitious Arab-Muslim power."

Her comments annoyed Rauf Abd al-Rahman, the chief judge in the Saddam trial. He ordered her out of the 21st session for challenging him.

One of Saddam's lawyers told the judge in that session that the court was dominated and controlled by the Americans.

The judge rejected the accusation, but al-Kahlil persisted, pointing to one person and saying to the judge: "Who is this man, then?"

The comment prompted the judge to order her out of the session.

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