The main defendants in the Saddam trial

SADDAM HUSSEIN
Aged 68. Strongman after the 1968 Baath party coup. He formally took over the presidency in 1979, ruling with absolute authority. Captured near his home town of Tikrit on December 13, 2003. A US ally during the 1980s, Saddam became an enemy after invading Kuwait in 1990.

TAHA YASSIN RAMADAN
Born 1938. Vice-President until 2003, Ramadan met Saddam after joining the Baath party in the mid-1950s and eventually rose to become a hardline member of the President's inner circle. As Industry Minister he said: "All I know is that anyone who doesn't work hard will be executed."

Iraqi exiles accused him and other officials of brutally stamping out a Shiite uprising in 1991 and killing thousands of Kurds in 1988. Captured in August 2003 at Mosul.

BARZAN IBRAHIM AL-TIKRITI
One of Saddam's three younger half-brothers. Former head of the feared Mukhabarat intelligence service. He allegedly ordered mass murder and torture. US officials described Barzan as a member of what they called Saddam's "Dirty Dozen". Captured in April 2003.

AWAD HAMED AL-BANDER
|Former chief judge in Saddam's Revolutionary Court, which is accused of organising show trials that often led to summary death sentences. Was the judge in charge of trying many of more than 140 Shiite men accused of trying to assassinate Saddam in Dujail in July 1982.

Local Dujail officials
ABDULLAH KADHEM RUAIDALI DAEEM ALI
MOHAMMED AZAWI ALI
MIZHER ABDULLAH RAWED

- REUTERS