BAGHDAD, March 12: The trial of Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants resumed on Sunday with the chief prosecutor calling for the prompt hanging of any found guilty.

Saddam Hussein is on trial for crimes against humanity in connection with the killing of 148 villagers from Dujail, north of Baghdad, after he escaped an assassination attempt there in 1982.

As the trial resumed after an 11-day suspension, just one of the accused, Mizher Abdullah Kadam al Roweed, a small-time former Baath party official from Dujail, was in court to offer testimony as to his role in the massacre.

All the defence lawyers also attended the hearing, the 15th since the trial began in October.

Speaking just hours earlier on state-television, the Iraqi High Tribunal’s chief prosecutor, Jaafar Mussawi, said Saddam would hang immediately without undergoing further trials if found guilty and sentenced to death in the present case.—AFP