The body of Saadoun Janabi, an attorney for Awad Hamad al-Bandar al-Sadun, one of Saddam's seven co-defendants, was found with a bullet to his head in the impoverished northern Baghdad neighbourhood of Ur, they said.

He had been seized from his office by two carloads of gunmen late Thursday, in an abduction that triggered calls from Saddam's legal team for better protection for his Iraqi lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi.

Janabi's client, a former chief judge of the revolutionary court and deputy head of Saddam's office, sat next to the ousted leader in the dock when they went on trial Wednesday for crimes against humanity over a 1982 murder of 143 Shiites.

A defiant Saddam and his seven former cohorts all pleaded not guilty to charges including murder and torture on the first day of the trial watched by millions across the globe. They face execution if convicted.

The hearing was adjourned to November 28 so witnesses could be questioned about the massacre, although an ailing key witness, an intelligence officer under Saddam, is to testify at a special hearing in the next few days.

"Investigating magistrates will visit Waddah Khalil al-Sheikh early next week to hear his testimony because he is sick and could die before the next court session," a source close to the court said.

Janabi's murder followed the release of a reporter from Britain's Guardian newspaper who was kidnapped on Wednesday while interviewing a victim of Saddam's regime.

Irish journalist Rory Carroll was "safe" and resting at the British embassy in Baghdad on Friday, a diplomatic source said.

"We are over the moon at the news," Rory's father Joe Carroll told Ireland's RTE state television after hearing the voice of his son.

Carroll was kidnapped in the eastern Baghdad neighbourhood of Baladiyat by gunmen who bundled him into a car with one of his companions, according to the newspaper.

"Interior ministry services arrested some members of the group that kidnapped him, there was an interrogation, and we freed him," a ministry official said.

On Thursday Iraqi officials also announced the capture of Saddam's nephew Yasser Sabawi for allegedly funding insurgent violence, and the US military said a senior lieutenant to al-Qaeda frontman Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi had been killed during raids.

US spokesman General Rick Lynch told reporters that a total 376 foreigners had been detained this year in Iraq, including 78 from Egypt, 66 from Syria, 41 from Sudan and 32 from Saudi Arabia.

Two British nationals had been detained, while countries that had one included Denmark, France, Ireland, Israel, Macedonia and the United States, "based on interrogations and documents they carried," Lynch said.

On the political front, electoral officials were continuing to count paper ballots to determine the results of Iraq's constitutional referendum on Saturday after reports of anomalies in the voting.

"We're still counting the results," said Farid Ayyar, a spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq. "We ask people not to rush us."

The charter that lays out the legal foundations for Iraq after decades of dictatorship can be approved by a simple majority, but rejected if two-thirds of voters say "no" in at least three of Iraq's 18 provinces.

Although it has the backing of Iraq's Shiite majority and Kurds, the constitution is opposed by Sunni Arabs who fear that its federalist provisions could lead to the break-up of the country.

Meanwhile Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa, in Baghdad on his first visit since the US-led invasion, was working with local officials on preparations for a national dialogue aimed at easing sectarian tensions.

Some Arab commentators have raised fears that Saddam's trial could exacerbate the division between Shiites and Kurds who were long oppressed under his regime and the now-disaffected Sunni Arabs.