The Iraqi tribunal trying Saddam Hussein adjourned the former dictator’s trial for a second time on Monday after a key defendant complained he had been unable to obtain a replacement for his murdered attorney.

The decision highlights the difficulties of giving Mr Hussein and his seven co-defendants a trial that meets international standards amid Iraq’s anarchy. But it is also likely to spark the anger of Shia anxious to see the former president swiftly convicted and executed.

In Monday’s session, the presiding judge, Rizgar Mohammed Amin, adjourned the trial until December 5, after Taha Yassin Ramadan, Mr Hussein’s former vice-president, said that one of his defence team had been killed, another wounded, and a third had fled the country. He refused to have the court appoint an attorney in their place.

Mr Ramadan’s attorney was one of two defence lawyers killed in separate incidents after the trial opened on October 19. At that session, it was adjourned for 40 days when defence lawyers complained they had not been given enough time to inspect the prosecution’s evidence.

In court on Monday, lawyers said they had been preoccupied with security threats during the past weeks, and were still not ready.

Human rights groups had earlier expressed concern that the amount of time that the court’s statute gave the defence to prepare – 45 days – might be too short for complex charges such as the ones against Mr Hussein and his co-defendants.

However, Shia politicians have harangued the court for taking too long, with Abdul al-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, accusing the judiciary of “weakness” in taking two years to bring the former president to trial.

Mr Hussein and his co-defendants are charged with carrying out a wave of repression against the inhabitants of the Shia town of Dujail after a 1982 attempt on the president’s life. It was reportedly chosen as the first of a dozen or so trials of members of the former regime because the events were relatively limited in scope and the case comparatively easy to prepare.

The adjournment followed a morning session that included theatrics from the former Iraqi president, the appearance of non-Iraqi attorneys, including former US attorney Ramsey Clark, and the videotaped testimony of a former regime official who died last month.

In a display of non-co-operation similar to his behaviour at earlier sessions, Mr Hussein at first refused to enter the courtroom, waiting a full five minutes before striding to his seat beside his seven co-defendants.

Several minutes later he challenged Mr Amin to exert his authority over US guards whom he said had shackled him on the way to the courtroom.

“They are in our country. You have sovereignty. You are Iraqi. They are invaders. They are occupiers,” Mr Hussein said.

Shortly afterwards, Mr Clark and former Qatari justice minister Najib al-Nauimi were formally inducted as advisers to Mr Hussein’s defence team, headed by Iraqi lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi.

Later the court heard the first substantive testimony against the accused – the videotaped statement of former intelligence officer Wadah al-Sheikh, who died shortly after giving testimony in October. Sheikh said more than 400 Dujail residents were arrested as Iraqi troops swept through the town. He did not directly implicate Mr Hussain.