[JURIST] Saddam Hussein was thrown out of court again Monday for failing to observe courtroom discipline in his genocide trial [JURIST news archive], his second ejection in as many sessions. The ousted Iraqi president was represented by eight court-appointed lawyers as his regular defense team carried out their threat to boycott [JURIST report] the proceeding in protest at the behavior of new presiding judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa, a Kurd who threw Hussein out of court [JURIST report] when he took over the trial last week. The original chief judge was replaced [JURIST report] by the government after he said in court Hussein was not a dictator [JURIST report]. During Monday's session, three witnesses testified for the prosecution, one reporting incidents of rape, abuse, and poor health conditions at Kurdish concentration camps, and another testifying that he witnessed the Iraqi army bomb his village with chemical weapons.

Hussein is being tried for his role in the deaths of 180,000 Kurds [JURIST report], mostly civilians, in the 1980s. Reuters has more.