KORAN CARRYING CREEP

Saddam Hussein's trial resumed today. Not suprisingly, he had lots of complaints:

The deposed dictator complained he had been forced to walk the stairs into the courtroom as the lift was broken and had been put in handcuffs on the way to the court, making it hard for him to carry a copy of the Koran.

He then lambasted the court for apparently confiscating his pen and paper, saying: "How can a defendant defend himself if they take even his papers and pen?"

The Kurdish Judge Amin - who as in the first hearing appeared unflappable in the face of Saddam's verbal jousts - promised the paper and pen back would be returned later on.

Saddam did not shy away from an angry tirade against the court's US guards.

"Please judge, I don't want you to tell them, order them. You are Iraqi, you have sovereignty, they are in your country, they are foreigners, they are invaders," he said.

It appears Saddam's determined to turn his trial into a circus, with an imported alternate ring-master to help with the distraction – now appearing in ring two:

Ramsey Clark, the former U.S. Attorney General and antiwar activist, arrived here yesterday and was expected to try to show up at the reopening of Saddam Hussein's trial in Baghdad today, but a U.S. government official warned that he was not officially registered with the court.

Clark never met a deposed dictator he didn't like.