AMMAN, Jordan — Saddam Hussein’s chief lawyer warned yesterday of worsening violence in Iraq and chaos across the Mideast if the ex-president is sentenced to death at his trial for a crackdown on a Shiite Muslim village in the 1980s.Khalil al-Dulaimi also said he would break a month-long boycott and attend proceedings today when Saddam’s second trial resumes on separate charges of genocide against the Kurds.

A verdict in Saddam’s first trial is expected November 5. He and seven others are charged with crimes against humanity in connection with the killing of 148 Shiites from Dujail after a 1982 assassination attempt against him.

Conviction carries a maximum penalty of death by hanging, but can be appealed to a higher court.

Meanwhile, the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, denied speculation that the timing of the verdict was set to coincide with midterm elections in the United States.

“That decision was made by the Iraqi judges,” he told CNN yesterday when asked about the verdict being scheduled two days ahead of the elections.

The United States assists the court with logistics and security, Khalilzad said. “But we don’t determine the date for holding the meetings or the trial or the date for making the decision or announcing the decision with regard to Saddam Hussein.”

Al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press in Jordan that he warned of a civil war in Iraq in a letter sent recently to President Bush.

“I warned him against the death penalty and against any other decision that would inflame a civil war in Iraq and send fire throughout the region,” al-Dulaimi said in a telephone interview from Baghdad. He did not say when he sent the letter to Bush.

“Any foolish American decision will further complicate things and will pose a serious threat to US interests in the region,” al-Dulaimi said.

He also claimed the offices of Saddam’s defence team in the US-controlled Green Zone of Baghdad were ransacked over a week ago and said more than 1,400 pages of trial documents were damaged.

“Some 1,450 pages were blackened and we believe that the prosecution was behind this,” al-Dulaimi said. He said he would lodge a complaint against the prosecution and demand an investigation into the incident.

He could not explain how the documents were blackened or damaged. Badee Izzat Aref, a lawyer for one of Saddam’s co-defendants, also said the lawyers’ offices had been ransacked. He said there was no sign of a break-in.

Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Mousawi said al-Dulaimi’s claims were “baseless and show the inability of the defence team in defending their clients.”

Al-Mousawi said the defence team’s offices are at an American military camp inside the Green Zone and insisted “no one can do such things.”

“They want to offend the court by this, but they are only offending their clients,” al-Mousawi said.

Prosecutors in the Operation Anfal trial allege that 180,000 people were killed during the campaign against Kurds.