The former dictator also told the court that he knew the name of the person who gave away the hiding place where he was captured in 2003.

“We all have been beaten and tortured by the Americans. Yes I have been beaten, everywhere on my body. The marks are still there,” he said. The White House described the claims as preposterous.

The allegations came as the deposed leader and his halfbrother, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, repeatedly used the sixth day of hearings to air grievances about their conditions of detention and the alleged abuses meted out to their fellow prisoners.

Their complaints came after lengthy testimony about the alleged round-up and indiscriminate murders of 148 Shias in Dujail after an attempt on Saddam’s life in the village in 1982.

Ali Hassen Muhammad al-Heideri, a Dujail resident, said that villagers were taken to an intelligence jail, where he saw them tortured and killed on Mr al-Tikriti’s orders. From there, Mr al-Heideri said, the survivors were taken to Abu Ghraib then transferred to a desert detention facility near Samawa, at both of which numerous men, women and children died. Mr al-Heideri said that Saddam’s guards applied electric shocks to detainees and dripped hot plastic on to their skin, then pulled it off when it dried.

Saddam and seven co-defendants deny the murders.

Yesterday they repeatedly sought to undermine the witness’s credibility, goading him and accusing him of involvement in the assassination plot.

In a bizarre twist, one of the supposed 148 victims gave evidence in court yesterday, testifying from behind a curtain that his name had wrongly appeared on a list of the dead after the alleged massacre.

The most dramatic moment was an angry exchange between Mr al-Heideri and Mr al-Tikriti when the latter told the witness that the shoe of his fellow defendant Taha Yassin Ramadan was “more honourable than you and all your tribe, you dog!” One guard entered the dock and grasped him by the arm. As he stared at Mr al-Tikriti he was clearly heard muttering: “I am going to beat you.”

The case continues.

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