BAGHDAD (AFP) - Lawyers defending Saddam Hussein and seven of his aides, on trial in Iraq for crimes against humanity, are to present 40 witnesses, including three ex-ministers, the tribunal prosecutor has said.

"The defence will present 40 witnesses, including three ministers from the former regime and other people currently being detained" by US forces in Iraq, Jaafar al-Mussawi told AFP Sunday.

He said that five or six witnesses were scheduled to give testimony during the next hearing of the trial, to begin Wednesday.

Saddam and seven of his deputies, including his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, are being tried for the massacre of 148 Shiites from Dujail village following an assassination attempt on the former president in 1982.

All eight defendants, who are pleading not guilty, face the death penalty if convicted.

Saddam refused to appear at the last hearing of the case on December 7 after a stormy tirade the previous night in which he told the judge to "go to hell". But he is expected to return to the court on Wednesday.

"Saddam should be in court and if he refuses to come, we will have to make him get into the dock," Mussawi said.

The prosecution is Wednesday due to lay out its case and present evidence implicating the former security services and the presidency in the Dujail massacre, Mussawi said.

The prosecutor accused Saddam's half-brother, former intelligence chief Barzan, of wasting court time following repeated interruptions of witness testimony at earlier hearings.

"Barzan is trying to distract the judges and prosecution with secondary matters and provoke them into responding in an inappropriate manner. He also wants to show that the court is not fair," he said.

Shiites and Kurds, who were long oppressed by the former Baathist regime, have criticised the slow start of the tribunal, held up by numerous adjournments and procedural wrangling.

Defence lawyers have challenged witness testimony so far as confused, fabricated and not directly implicating their clients, amid furious outbursts from the dock attesting to maltreatment in detention and the illegality of the court.