BAGHDAD (AFP) - Three people told on Wednesday how their loved ones were hurriedly executed in 1992 when Tareq Aziz was in Saddam Hussein's regime, as testimony began in the trial of the former deputy premier.

Aziz, 72, and seven others are on trial over the execution of 42 Baghdad merchants accused of racketeering while Iraq was under UN sanctions.

They could be sentenced to death if convicted.

Two women, speaking from behind a curtain for security reasons and who did not identify themselves, testified that their husbands had been taken away and quickly executed.

They both had near identical tales of losing their husbands shortly after they were taken away by "economic security" units and said they were now seeking compensation.

Trader Jasseb Saber Dhamen said he was spared because he was an amputee, but his brother Karim was rounded up from Jamila market in Baghdad's Sadr City neighbourhood and executed in July 1992.

"I pleaded and they released me because I am disabled, but the next day I was told that my brother had been executed," Dhamen told the court when the trial resumed in Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone.

Co-defendant Sabbawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, who was chief of public security from 1991 to 1995, said they had not committed any crimes against humanity and described the trial as a political move to get rid of them.

"They (the witnesses) come here not because we have committed any crimes against humanity, but because politically motivated people want them to make these complaints," he said.

Aziz, a former foreign minister and deputy prime minister who surrendered to US forces in April 2003 shortly after the invasion, charges that people who had tried to assassinate him in the past were now out to finish the job.

Wednesday's session began with Aziz protesting that his Iraqi lawyer was unable to appear in court because the authorities were trying to arrest him.

In a hearing on Tuesday, Aziz said the trial before the Iraqi High Tribunal was a vendetta against him.

"I know it is a plot of personal revenge because the people who are governing Iraq now tried to kill me on the first of April 1980 in front of hundreds of people, but they did not succeed," he told the court.

"Now they are saying, 'Let us do what we have failed to do in 1980."

Aziz, the only Christian in Saddam's inner circle, said he was proud to have been a member of the now disbanded Baath party but that he could not be held responsible for the charges against him.

Prosecutor Adnan Ali outlined the charges against Aziz and the other defendants, including Ali Hassan al-Majid -- otherwise known as Chemical Ali -- who has already been sentenced to death for genocide in another case.

Majid and former interior minister Watban al-Hassan were among the eight defendants in court.

The trial is to resume on Thursday.

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