Saddam's signature on incriminating documents-court

BAGHDAD, Apr 24 (Reuters) Signatures on documents linking Saddam Hussein and six of his co-accused to the killings of 148 Shi'ites in the 1980s match those of the former Iraqi president, a court heard today.

''The signatures and margins stipulated in the documents match the signature of Saddam Hussein on presidential decrees,'' said a report demanded by the prosecution read out at the court.

The prosecution had demanded the court commission a team of criminal experts to authenticate the signatures and handwriting of the defendants facing charges of crimes against humanity.

Saddam and his half brother Barzan al-Tikriti have refused to give the court samples of their writing but both have said there was no crime in prosecuting the 148 Shi'ites because they were accused of trying to kill the former leader.

The defendants could face death by hanging if found guilty.

Defence lawyers demanded 45 days to study new evidence before commenting. The trial was adjourned until May 15 to give the defence time to present their witnesses in next session.

Barzan, once one of the most feared men in Iraq, challenged the evidence once again, dismissing it as an attempt to ruin the reputations of the accused.

''Why didn't the investigator show us the original copy of this evidence... It's presented in front of hundreds of millions to try and stain our reputation,'' said Barzan, a former Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

''I have my reservations about the accusations that the signatures and handwriting is real.'' The 148 Shi'ite men and teenagers were killed or executed after an attempt on Saddam's life in the town of Dujail in 1982.

Television footage of that day showed Saddam in a military uniform getting out of his armoured car and personally interrogating nervous Iraqis about the assassination attempt.

Today, he sat in his dark suit and white shirt in his metal pen, unusually quiet for a man who has dominated the court with tirades calling for Iraqis to revolt against US occupation.

He left the talking to Barzan, who said the evidence was weak because anyone can forge a signature.

Saddam could soon face a new trial on charges of genocide against the Kurds in the late 1980s in the Anfal campaign, in which Kurdish authorities say about 100,000 were killed or disappeared and many villages were destroyed.

Prosecutors had hoped for a quick sentence in the Dujail case because it is far simpler than others such as genocide against the Kurds and charges of crimes against humanity in the suppression of Shi'ite uprisings.

REUTERS PR KP1547