Kuwait City: Iraq's ousted president Saddam Hussein is a "war criminal" who must face capital punishment, Kuwait's information minister said today (July 1, 2004), in response to his August 1990 invasion of the emirate.

Saddam is a "war criminal who committed genocide against the Iraqi and Kuwaiti people", Mohammed Abulhassan told.

"We demand that he face the maximum punishment, which is death for his crimes," the minister added.

At a first court appearance on Thursday, Saddam was unrepentant as he declared, "Kuwait is an Iraqi territory. It was not an invasion," a tribunal official said.

Saddam also insulted the emirate. "How could you defend those dogs?" he asked, only to be rebuked by the judge "such language is not permitted" in a court of law.

Iraqi forces invaded neighbouring oil-rich Kuwait and occupied it for seven months before being driven out by a US-led multinational coalition in the 1991 Gulf War.