Baghdad, Dec 22, SPA -- The trial of Saddam Hussein on charges of crimes against humanity resumed in Baghdad on Thursday and was expected to hear from two witnesses before adjourning for around a month. The former Iraqi president entered the heavily fortified courtroom shortly before 11:30 a.m. (0830 GMT), accompanied by his seven co-defendants. On Wednesday, Saddam ended the sixth session of the stop-start trial by saying he had been beaten and tortured in U.S. custody, a claim dismissed as "highly ironic" by the U.S. State Department. Saddam and his co-defendants are charged with ordering the killing of 148 people from the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, in the 1980s. Reuters quoted prosecutors as saying that Saddam ordered the killings in reprisal for a failed bid to assassinate him in the village in 1982. --SPA 13 04 Local Time 10 04 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/313752