The trial of the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and six co-defendants on genocide charges resumed in Baghdad yesterday with more Kurdish witnesses expected to testify.

Monday's session came 19 days after the last session on Nov. 8, when Chief Judge Muhammad Ureiybi adjourned the trial till Nov. 27 to give enough time to the defense to assemble a list of witnesses.

On Nov. 8, four witnesses took the stand to testify in the trial of operation Anfal (Spoils of War) military campaign in which prosecutors said that up to 180,000 Kurds were killed, many of them by poison gas and mass killings.

If convicted, Saddam could get his second death penalty following the first one he got from the trial of Dujail.

On Nov. 5, Saddam and two of his senior aides were sentenced to death on crimes against humanity for Dujail case, in which 148 people were executed in the aftermath of a crackdown on the small Shiite village following a failed assassination attempt against Saddam in 1982.

The Dujail verdicts are now with an appellate court, whose final decision will come within an unspecified time. If it approves the death ruling, Saddam would be executed lawfully within 30 days of that decision.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has already said that Saddam may be hanged before the end of this year.