Iraq's former deputy Prime Minister, Tareq Aziz, has gone on trial after five years in US custody.
Dressed in a brown suit and using a stick for support, Mr Aziz and six other defendants were in the dock for the opening of the trial, which began after several hours' delay.
The eighth defendant, Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as ‘Chemical Ali’, already sentenced to death after being convicted of genocide for his part in the killing of tens of thousands of Kurdish civilians in the late 1980s, was not in court.
Presiding judge Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman, himself a Kurd, said Mr Majid had submitted a medical certificate.
Soon after the proceedings began, Mr Aziz demanded a new lawyer as his counsel was unable to attend due to security reasons.
After a 45-minute hearing, the judge adjourned the trial until 20 May.
The eight face charges over the execution of 42 businessmen convicted of raising food prices in 1992. The charges carry the death penalty.
The accused include Saddam Hussein’s half-brother Watban Ibrahim al-Hassan, Sabbawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, chief of public security from 1991 to 1995 and Mizban Khudier Hadi, a former Revolutionary Command Council member.
The others are Saddam Hussein's secretary Abid Hamid Mahmud, former finance minister Ahmed Hussein Khudier and former central bank governor Essam Rasheed Khuwaish.
Mr Aziz was the principal spokesman for Saddam Hussein's regime for two decades.
It is the fourth trial of former regime officials by the Iraqi High Tribunal, the court set up to try high-ranking officials under Saddam Hussein.
Very little has been heard of Mr Aziz during his time in US custody, but he is reported to be in poor health.
