Saddam Hussein listens to a witness testimony during his trial in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone yesterday. Saddam's forces buried a Kurdish family alive in a mass grave during a military operation against ethnic Kurds in the 1980s, a witness told the genocide trial of the ousted Iraqi leader yesterday. -Xinhua/AFP

The genocide trial of Iraqi toppled president Saddam Hussein resumed yesterday without defense team, amid the assassination of the brother of Iraqi Vice President, mass policemen poisoning, kidnappings of Iraqi soldiers and a car bombing ripping through a popular market.

SADDAM TRIAL

Saddam and other codefendants were all present at the courtroom in Baghdad on Monday, while the defense team announced they would continue to boycott the trial.

Since judge Abdullah al-Amiri was replaced by Muhammed Ureybi for allegedly being biased toward the defendants, the defense lawyers have been boycotting, and the defendants were represented only by court-appointed lawyers.

During the session, four witnesses took the stand to tell the court harrowing stories from their Kurdish villages and their conditions at prison detentions.

A female witness who talked from behind a curtain told the court that the Iraqi forces attacked her village in the northern Kurdish region in April 1988, when she was 13 years old, and what happened to her family after they were detained.

She told the court that she saw an officer named only Hajaj torturing the women.

"I saw Hajaj tying two girls to the wall under a burning sun during a summer day," she said, adding "I know what happened to my family. They were buried alive."

The woman demanded the court to ask Saddam "why you did that to our women and children?"

Saddam and his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," as well as five former commanders face charges of genocide for their role in Anfal, which the chief prosecutor said left 182, 000 people dead or missing.

ASSASSINATION, BOMBING AND KIDNAPPING

Earlier Monday, gunmen wearing police commando uniforms broke into the house of the brother of Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, killing him and kidnapping his guards.

"Gen. Amir al-Hashimi, brother of Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi and an advisor of the Defense Ministry, was shot dead by unknown gunmen wearing police commando uniforms who raided his house early Monday," an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.

The attackers also killed Amir al-Hashimi's bodyguard and kidnapped his guards, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Al-Hashimi is one of the most senior Sunni Arabs in the Shiite-led national unity government. Amir al-Hashimi was the third of the VP siblings killed since April. Gunmen also killed his sister and another brother in two separate attacks in Baghdad.

In Baghdad's eastern slum of Sadr City, gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint, kidnapping 11 soldiers.

"Unknown gunmen in a minibus stormed the checkpoint of Hamza Square in Sadr City district and seized all the soldiers, apparently without shooting at any of them," an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.

The attackers were not immediately identified, according to the source, who said that the area where the incident took place was under the control of the Mehdi militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The incident came a day after U.S. and Iraqi forces killed 20 militants in clashes with the Mehdi army in the Shiite City of Diwaniyah, some 130 km south of Baghdad.

Violence continued at dust on Monday. A car bomb ripped through a popular market in northeast Baghdad, killing at least 13 people and wounding 49 others.

The explosive-laden car parked on the side of the street in Shalal market in Shaab district went off at about 6:30 p.m. (1530 GMT), while shopkeepers were closing to break their day-long Ramadan fast, a police source told Xinhua.

The blast also caused several cars on fire and many shops damaged, the source added.

MASS FOOD POISONING

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered an investigation on Monday into mass food poisoning that left hundreds of policemen ill on Sunday at a military training base in Numaniyah, some 120 km southeast of Baghdad.

A medical source in Numaniyah hospital told Xinhua that three police recruits died and more than 1,200 recruits felt sick after eating suspicious meals Sunday evening.

"The men started to feel sick after they ate meals breaking their daylight fast on Sunday at the Numaniyah military training base, some 120 km southeast of Baghdad," the source said on condition of anonymity.

"The victims were evacuated to Numaniyah and Kut hospitals by ambulances, military and civilian cars," the source added.

The source said it remained unknown whether the victims were poisoned deliberately.