Ziyad Khasawneh also warned that if the Iraqi tribunal continued to keep his team in the dark, the panel could be obliged to ‘quit’ the assignment.

“So far, the special Iraqi court has insisted on keeping us in complete blackout by failing to provide us with any document regarding the charges levelled against the president or the outcome of investigations conducted with him,” Khasawneh told DPA.

“The Iraqi lawyer who represents the president’s defence panel in Iraq, Kahlil Duleimi, also failed to get any papers from the tribunal. This runs counter to the preliminary rules of litigation. It is not a trial. It is a farce,” he said.

Khasawneh appealed to the world’s law bodies as well as to the international public opinion “to say their word on what is taking place”.

“They should come to our help, otherwise we could be forced to quit the job if we don’t have any other choice,” he said.

Khasawneh leads some 30 Arab and non-Arab prominent legal specialists who volunteered to defend the former Iraqi president.

The panel includes renowned lawyers such as former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark and Aisheh, daughter of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

In compliance with the Iraqi Bar Association rules, Saddam’s defence team appointed Duleimi to represent it in Iraq. The Iraqi lawyer succeeded in meeting Saddam at least twice over the past few months — the last time on April 27.

“President Saddam told Duleimi that he had complete confidence in the Amman-based in defence panel, but the problem is that the so-called special Iraqi tribunal refuses to provide us with any document. How then can we proceed with our job?” Khasawneh asked.

Saddam, whose regime was knocked out by a US-led multinational force in April 2003, was captured by an American force in December the same year at a hideout near his hometown, Tikrit.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that they managed to visit the former Iraqi leader several times under his US custody inside Iraq.

Saddam appeared in public for the first time before the Iraqi tribunal on 1 July 2004, but refused to respond to the charges list, saying he would not speak “without the presence of my lawyers”.

A series of declarations was made in Iraq over the past few weeks about an imminent resumption of Saddam’s trial.

The government’s spokesman Leith Kubba said earlier this week that the Iraqi court would bring only 12 charges of crimes against humanity against Saddam Hussein, although there were more than 500 possible cases against the ousted Iraqi leader.

“We are completely confident that the 12 fully documented charges that have been brought against him are more than sufficient to ensure he receives the maximum sentence (the death penalty),” Kubba said.

Saddam faces a flurry of accusations which might be brought against him, ranging from the 1988 chemical attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja and the forced repression of the 1991 Shiite rebellion in southern Iraq.

During a visit to Jordan last month, Iraqi President Jalal Talebani announced that he would not sanction the death penalty against Saddam if such a verdict were adopted by the court.