Karwan Abdallah Tawfiq, who at the time of the 1987-1988 attacks on Iraq's Kurds was a radio operator for peshmerga rebels, described how his village was bombed and he fled with other villagers into the hills over the dead bodies of the victims.

"I saw with my own eyes all those broken limbs," he said. It would be the last thing he saw for some time as the chemical attacks burned his eyes and he became unconscious.

"After two months I regained consciousness. I was disoriented. After that I found myself with some friends at the Imam Khomeini hospital at Isfahan in Iran."

"I used to feel as if I was drunk the whole time. I spent six months in the hospital, and in all that time I was unable to see," he said, describing how he later gained asylum and medical treatment in the Netherlands.

"Even my children are scared to see my eyes when I remove the glasses. My eyes are scary," he told the court, taking off his sunglasses to reveal heavily bloodshot eyes.

"Look at my eyes, look at my hands," he said to the court.

The chief judge Abdullah al-Ameri told him to put his glasses back on again.

Tawfiq added that he had been part of a successful lawsuit in the Hague against a Dutch arms trader that had sold chemical weapons to Saddam's regime.

The witness, the 20th so far in the trial, testified that European doctors were mystified by his wounds, saying they hadn't seen anything like this since the Second World War.

Saddam, in cross-examining the witness, seized on the statement.

"I would like to ask this man, did he see the results of the chemical weapons used by the Americans in Vietnam?"

The judge cut him off, saying that this was not a matter for the trial.

Tawfiq further explained how he escaped to Netherlands on a fake name for "fear of the dictatorial regime which was chasing my friends."

"I applied under the name of Sardar Ali Abdallah. I changed my name and the date of birth" on the passport, he told the court.

Hearing this, defence lawyer Badie Arif during his cross-examination said "all the details have been faked by him. How are we going to rely on his testimony?"

After the end of the session Arif told AFP he planned to sue the prosecutor for presenting a witness who had faked his name and fled the regime.

"He (the prosecutor) knew that this witness had gone on a fake name," said Arif.

On Monday, the hearing heard one more witness before adjourning until Tuesday. The female witness too described attacks on her village and said some of her relatives disappeared or were killed during the attacks.

Saddam and six of his former associates are on trial for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

They are accused of spearheading the 1987-1988 "Anfal" campaign in Iraq's northern Kurdish region, which prosecutors say killed 182,000 Kurds after their villages were bombed, burned and razed to the ground.

If found guilty they face execution by hanging.

The trial in recent sessions turned controversial after friendly exchanges between the Shiite chief judge and Saddam, with the prosecutor and some Kurdish and Shiite groups demanding Ameri's resignation.

During a cordial exchange on Thursday Ameri said to Saddam: "You were not a dictator," and suggested it was those close to him who made him look like one. Saddam thanked the judge.

Iraq's Kurds are still nursing their wounds from Anfal, while Shiites are awaiting the October 16 verdict in Saddam's first trial on charges of murdering 148 villagers from Dujail village after an attempt on his life in the 1980s.

When asked about the judge's statement, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Monday: "The government doesn't intervene in the affairs of the high tribunal".

"We want this court to be neutral and show the world the crimes of this dictator," he added. "Saddam is the worst dictator Iraq has known in its long history."

Ameri has 25 years' experience and was also a judge under the former regime.