Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Tuesday the withdrawal of ministers loyal to Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has not weakened his government and he will name technocrats to replace them soon. In the biggest Cabinet shake-up since al-Maliki took office a year ago, six Sadrist ministers pulled out of the government on Monday.

Prosecutors on Monday sought the death penalty for Saddam Hussein’s cousin, widely known as ”Chemical Ali”, for his use of poison gas against the regime’s opponents and once one of the most feared men in Iraq. Ali Hassan al-Majeed is on trial with five other former senior Ba’ath party officials for their roles in the 1988 Anfal (Spoils of War) campaign.

Bombers killed 36 people in attacks on Shi’ite worshippers marking the climax of the religious festival of Ashura near Baghdad on Tuesday and gunmen killed four in Baghdad’s district of Bayaa. Fearing a strike by insurgents, Iraqi authorities had deployed 11 000 police and soldiers to the holy Shi’ite city of Kerbala.

Car bombs tore through a fruit and vegetable market in a Shi’ite area of central Baghdad on Saturday, killing 43 people in another devastating attack that is fuelling an increasingly vicious cycle of sectarian violence. The bombing came two days after United States President George Bush met Iraq’s prime minister to discuss ways to avert all-out civil war and 10 days after the bloodiest attack since the US invasion killed more than 200 people in the capital.

The chief judge ejected Saddam Hussein and a co-defendant punched one of the guards and denounced prosecutors as pimps and traitors during the toppled Iraq leader’s genocide trial on Tuesday. The government criticised the United States-backed court after the chaotic scenes. Last month it sacked the previous presiding judge because it believed he was too soft with Saddam.