Saddam Hussein's defence team will ask for a three-month adjournment at the opening of the trial of the former Iraqi dictator tomorrow.

Saddam is in high spirits and "very optimistic" on the eve of his trial for allegedly ordering the massacre of Shia Muslims, Khalil Dulaimi, a local lawyer who will present the defence, said after a meeting today with the ousted leader.

"I have just left him five minutes ago. His morale is very, very, very high and he is very optimistic and confident of his innocence, although the court is ... unjust," Mr Dulaimi told the Associated Press.

The lawyer met Saddam for 90 minutes at a location that Mr Dulaimi said was not his usual place of detention. He would not specify where the meeting took place.

Saddam’s location has been kept secret since his capture by American troops in December 2003, but it is believed that he has been held at a United States facility at Baghdad International Airport.

Mr Dulaimi said that at Wednesday's opening session, he would ask for the adjournment to give him time to better prepare Saddam’s defencee and to arrange for Arab and Western lawyers to join him in the defencee team. The defence will also raise a motion challenging the court’s competence to try Saddam.

The court is expected to grant an adjournment if the defence asks for one, though it is known how long it would be, court officials have said.

Saddam and seven senior members of his regime go on trial Wednesday to face 19 charges of killing 143 Iraqi civilians from the Shia Muslim village of Dujail, where a failed assassination attempt against Saddam in 1982 was followed by a brutal reprisal.

If convicted, Saddam and his co-defendants could face the death penalty, but they could appeal before another chamber of the special tribunal set up to try the former leader and officials from his ousted regime.

Times Recommends

• A track to Shangri-La: Bhutan gets first rail link
• Avatar takings hit $600m in ten days
• Bomb disposal squad is Times’s Team of the Year