"One of the crimes of Saddam Hussein is the attack against Iran, the deaths of Iranians, the use of chemical weapons. We have prepared a complaint which will be filed to the tribunal," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said.

Urging the Iraqi court to "act with transparency and in a public manner," Asefi also complained that Saddam's 1980 land grab -- which sparked the catastrophic 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war -- did not figure on the original list of charges.

"We have asked the Iraqis to explain why the attack on Iran did not feature among the charges against him, even though the judge said the question would be addressed at a later date," Asefi said.

Saddam, toppled last year by a US-led invasion, appeared on Thursday before the court in Baghdad which is to judge him for crimes against humanity.

But the list of seven charges against him do not relate to the Iran-Iraq war, during which close to a million people -- mostly Iranians -- were killed.

According to official figures, Iran has 45,000 registered war veterans with chemical injuries who cost the regime around 20 million dollars a year to support.

Iran has also alleged Iranian prisoners were tortured and executed in captivity.

Saddam's 1990 invasion of US ally Kuwait and his gassing of the Iraqi Kurd border town of Halabja in 1988, however, do feature on the charge sheet.

In Iran's new conservative-held parliament yesterday, speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel denounced the trial as "American".

On Friday, Iran's influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said Saddam's trial should be totally public and denounced the fact that the Iran-Iraq war was not among the main charges.

IRAQI TRIBUNAL CONTACTS SADDAM'S LAWYERS
The head of Iraq's special tribunal charged with putting Saddam Hussein on trial has made contact with his defence counsel, the former Iraqi president's chief Jordanian defence lawyer said Saturday.

Salem Chalabi "telephoned me last night (Saturday) and said he wanted to facilitate the action of the defence team in the tribunal", Mohammed al-Rashdan told the news agency.

But Chalabi insisted Iraqi law stipulates that Saddam's in-court defence lawyer be Iraqi although he said the Jordanian team has "begun contacts to choose an Iraqi lawyer".

SADDAM MORE THAN A MATCH FOR TRIBUNAL
Saddam Hussein, former law student, proved more than a match for the Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST) in round one of what is expected to be a long legal battle as he fights for his life.

"Saddam Hussein's attitude could have a major impact on the image of the Americans who set up the tribunal," Badie Arif Ezzat, a lawyer approached by the families of several former top officials also in the dock, told the news agency.

Chief US administrator Paul Bremer, who stepped down last week, established the IST by decree on December 10 to try the former leadership on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"You have on one side a president of the republic who signed laws for more than 20 years, and who knows the law, and on the other a very young magistrate who completed his studies in 1999," noted Ezzat.