Saddam Hussein today announced in court that he was on hunger strike to protest against tough stances by the chief judge.
The former Iraqi leader shouted his support for Iraqi insurgents, yelling "Long live the mujahedeen," as he entered the courtroom and immediately began shouting with with chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman.
"For three days we have been holding a hunger strike protesting against your way in treating us
- against you and your masters," Saddam told Mr Abdel-Rahman, who in yesterday's session ordered the eight defendants to attend the court despite a boycott by their original defence team.
Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein addresses the court of the Iraqi High Tribunal at the start of proceedings today inside the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad
When Mr Abdel-Rahman banged his gavel and rebuked him for not standing when he addressed the court, Saddam - dressed in a dark grey suit - retorted, "Hit your own head with that gavel."
One of the co-defendants, Awad Hamed al-Bandar, also said he was not eating. Saddam made no mention of a hunger strike in yesterday's session.
Yesterday's session had a stormy start as Saddam and half-brother Barzan Ibrahim argued with the judge, protesting that they had been forced to attend.
There was similar shouting at the opening of today's proceedings, but calm was brought quickly, and the court began hearing the day's first prosecution witness - a former intelligence official who testified from behind a curtain to maintain his anonymity.
Yesterday, the prosecution made its strongest attempt yet to link Saddam personally to executions carried out in a crackdown launched in 1982 following an attempt on his life in the Shia town of Dujail. It produced execution orders with his signatures and put members of his regime on the witness stand for the first time.
Saddam and his co-accused are charged with the killing of 148 men from Dujail in reprisal for a bid to assassinate Saddam there in 1982. If convicted, they could face the death penalty by hanging.
Today, the prosecution intended to call more regime figures as witnesses - including Fadel Mohammed, an intelligence official, and Hamed Youssef Hamadi, who was a minister of culture under Saddam, in addition to the anonymous intelligence official.
Twenty-six prosecution witnesses have testified since the Saddam trial began on October 19th, many providing accounts of torture and imprisonment in the crackdown, but they could not directly pin them on Saddam.