Two detainees who escaped after last-minute struggles with the death squads told of stumbling into the night while a full moon shone down on a ghostly landscape dotted with mass graves and bullet-riddled corpses.

Their testimony was the first eye-witness account of mass killings during Saddam's 1988 "Anfal" campaign against Iraq's Kurdish minority, during which prosecutors allege that 182,000 people were slaughtered.

Speaking anonymously from behind a screen, two Kurdish men described how they and their fellow camp inmates were driven to the desert in stinking trucks, stained with urine and faeces.

"It was an unpaved road. Our vehicle got stuck in the sand ... and we heard gunfire. It wasn't that close, it was far from us, but we heard screaming and gunfire," one said.

"Then it was dark, and they brought a group of people in front of a vehicle. The drivers got out of our vehicles and turned on the headlights, put three lines or four lines of people in front of our vehicle and opened fire."

The prisoner struggled with the guards and shooting broke out. Although injured, he managed to flee.

"I fled from the shooting and I fell into a ditch and it was full of bodies. I fell on a body, he was still alive, it was his last breath.

"I saw light in the distance and ran towards the lights. As I was running I saw many pits. I saw people who had been shot. The desert was full of mounds that all had people buried underneath," he said.

One of Saddam's co-defendants, Ali Hassan al-Majid -- the notorious "Chemical Ali" -- mocked the witness, accusing him of telling a "tale worthy of Hollywood," but a second Kurd gave a similar harrowing account.

"We went for a while on the unpaved road, we felt we were going to die, that they were going to kill us. We arrived and the armed guards got off," he said.

"Then we heard the sound of gunfire and we knew it was the people in the next vehicle being shot and that our turn would be next. We exchanged forgiveness and were weeping," he said.

"At that point we decided that if they came to kill us we are going to attack them. If one of 34 people survived it was worth a try," he added.

The detainees' moment came when guards attempted to take one blindfolded prisoner out of the truck. They revolted, attacking him and trying to force the door open.

"He wasn't able to lock the door so the guards outside started firing into the vehicle. They continued to fire all over the vehicle from every direction and I was injured by a bullet in my back," the witness said.

Without sight in one eye and covered in blood, the witness was among a small group which burst out of the truck. Some grabbed for the guards' guns, while he staggered off into the night amid the mayhem.

Saddam and six co-defendants were represented by court-appointed counsel as the hearing resumed, although Judge Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah said that if their own private lawyers turned up they could turn to court.

For the past month, the defence has boycotted the trial in protest at alleged interference by the Iraqi government, while the defendants' noisy protests have often seen them expelled from the dock.

The defence team said Wednesday they needed to discuss a string of demands before they can call off their boycott.

"There will be contacts with the court, under the supervision of the Americans, and in light of that we will decide whether or not to end the boycott," Saddam's chief Iraqi lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said.

Previous witnesses have told of how hundreds of fellow camp inmates died of hunger or disease or were raped and murdered by guards, while prosecutors have shown identity papers found in mass graves.

The former president and his co-defendants insist the operation was a legitimate military campaign against separatist guerrillas and fighters who sided with Iran, with which Iraq was at war during the 1980s.

Saddam and Majid, a former military commander who became notorious for anti-Kurd gas attacks, are accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The five others are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, and all seven accused face the death penalty if convicted.

"It won't be long. An execution order on this criminal despot and his criminal aides will be passed soon," Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said.

"His execution will remove the playing card on which those who want to be back in power are betting," he told reporters.

The case was adjourned until Thursday.

The Iraqi High Tribunal has also set a date of November 5 for the verdict in Saddam's earlier trial for crimes against humanity over the killing of 148 villagers in the 1980s.