Saddam Hussein was today thrown out of court by the new chief judge in his genocide trial.

Mohammed al-Ureybi, a Shia who was deputy presiding judge, took over this morning as the new chief judge in the Baghdad trial after the government yesterday sacked Abdullah al-Ameri, also a Shia, for alleged bias in favour of Saddam who he had declared was "not a dictator".

During a particularly stormy hearing today, the former Iraqi dictator refused to sit down in protest against the appointment of the new judge, and was ordered to leave the court.

Before being escorted out by guards, Saddam Hussein told his fellow defendants: "You should leave too."

He also accused the judge of being the son of a government spy under his regime.

"Your father was a security agent!" he said. "I knew him. He had an operation here," he added, gesturing at his own abdomen.

"I challenge you to prove that to the public," responded the judge dismissively as guards led the ex-leader from the courtroom.

Another high-profile defendant, Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali", also asked to leave the court, but the judge ordered him to stay.

Soon afterwards all the defence lawyers also left, protesting against Mr al-Ameri’s dismissal, saying that they would not continue proceedings until the government pledged not to interfere.

"We want to say that the government is interfering in the trial. We cannot continue with our work fairly," Wudud Fawzi said, reading a statement on behalf of the defence lawyers.

"We decided to withdraw from the trial for the above reasons, we want no inference with the trial from the government and we will not return until this condition is met."

The trial, which is taking place in the city’s high-security Green Zone, relates to Saddam's Anfal campaign against Kurds in the late 1980s.

Saddam Hussein and six of his colleagues are accused of spearheading a military campaign in 1987-1988 that killed 182,000 people. They face several charges including genocide and face the death penalty if found guilty.

The Government said that in deciding to sack the previous judge, it had taken into consideration "a big uprising from the people, who feel that there is no longer any neutrality for the victims".

A spokesman added that the law that established the Iraqi High Tribunal empowered the cabinet to remove and replace any of judges if it was felt they were not meeting their duty sufficiently.

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