Saddam prays all day in prison, lawyer says

RAMADI, Iraq - Saddam Hussein hears little of the world outside and spends his time in US military prison reading and praying, his lawyer says.

"He does not know what is going on in the outside world," Khalil al-Dulaimi said of the former Iraqi president.

"He spends his days praying and reading the Koran and other books," Dulaimi said as he announced that the defence team would boycott further dealings with the tribunal trying Saddam and his aides for crimes against humanity.

"Saddam is a prisoner of war," he said, calling on the United Nations and United States to press the Iraqi court to release the former leader.

Saddam was arrested in December 2003 after he was found by US troops, hiding in a hole near his home town of Tikrit.

Since then he has been held at a US military base at Baghdad airport. He appeared defiant and refused to recognise the court on the first day of the trial last month.

- REUTERS