During a procedural appeal court hearing lawyers for Frans van Anraat, 63, presented a list of witnesses they would like to call.

They included Hussein and his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, the Dutch news agency ANP said.

Van Anraat was sentenced to 15 years' jail on December 23 on charges of aiding war crimes but was acquitted of complicity in genocide over the 1988 massacre of 5,000 Kurds by dictator Saddam Hussein's regime.

The court in The Hague ruled that while the former Iraqi ruler committed genocide against Kurds in the 1980s, it had not been proven that Van Anraat knew of the regime's genocidal intentions.

The court is to decide on October 23 if the defence's wishes are to be acceded to. They had submitted a similar request during the original trial, but it was rejected at the time.

Van Anraat, who lived as a fugitive in Iraq for 14 years until the United States-led invasion in 2003, was prosecuted after the Dutch supreme court ruled that national courts could try Dutch residents over genocide and war crimes committed in other countries.

Under international law, genocide carries a special burden of proof showing that a suspect had a specific intent or knew of a specific intent to commit genocide. The burden of proof is less for war crimes.

The ousted Iraqi leader himself returned to court on Monday for the latest hearing in his genocide trial, which continued in Baghdad following a two-week adjournment.