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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Saddam Hussein returned to court for his genocide trial Tuesday, two days after another panel convicted him of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to hang.

Hussein, wearing a black suit and white shirt with a handkerchief, found his way quietly to his seat among the other six defendants charged in the Operation Anfal crackdown against Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s.

The chief judge then convened the session and called the first witness, Qahar Khalil Mohammed.

On Sunday, another five-judge panel convicted Hussein in the deaths of nearly 150 Shiite Muslims following a 1982 assassination attempt against him in the town of Dujail in 1982.

He and two others were sentenced to death by hanging. Four co-defendants received lesser sentences and one was acquitted.

The Dujail case is subject to appeal, and the Anfal trial will continue while the appeal is under way.

On Monday, the chief prosecutor said the nine-judge appeals panel was expected to rule on Hussein's guilty verdict and death sentence by the middle of January. That could set in motion a possible execution by mid-February. (Full story)

Iraqi authorities imposed a lockdown on Baghdad and surrounding provinces in anticipation of the Sunday verdict. Those measures were lifted Monday after a feared surge in violence failed to materialize, although there were pro-Hussein rallies throughout Sunni Muslim areas of the country.

Shiites and Kurds, who suffered terribly under Hussein's rule, hailed the sentence as just.

If the appeals court upholds the sentences, all three members of the Presidential Council -- President Jalal Talabani and Vice Presidents Tariq al-Hashimi and Adil Abdul-Mahdi -- must sign death warrants before executions can be carried out.

Talabani said Monday that although he opposes capital punishment, his signature is not needed to carry out Hussein's death sentence. Talabani, a Kurd, has permanently authorized Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite, to sign on his behalf. Abdul-Mahdi has said he would sign Saddam's death warrant, meaning two of three signatures were assured.

Al-Hashimi, the other vice president and a Sunni, gave his word that he also would sign a Hussein death sentence as part of the deal under which he got the job April 22, according to witnesses at the meeting, which was attended by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

"We wanted a written promise before the first meeting of the new parliament. But later and during a meeting in the presence of American and British ambassadors and other politicians, the promise became oral in which he vowed not to oppose important rules and laws -- especially those related to Saddam," Deputy Parliament Speaker Khaled al-Attiyah told the AP.

Thus the approval of the death penalties handed down Sunday for Saddam, his half brother Barzan Hassan, and Awad Bandar, chief of the Revolutionary Court, had been part of the pact under which al-Hashimi got one of two vice presidential posts.

If the nine-judge appeals panel upholds the death sentences, they could be ready for signing early next year, according to a schedule laid out Monday by chief prosecutor Jaafar Moussawi.

Moussawi said the Iraqi High Tribunal must send the entire case file to the appeals panel within 10 days, or by Nov. 15.

On the same day that the defense appeal is given to the High Tribunal -- the deadline is Dec. 5 -- that court is required to send it to the prosecutor general for study and preparation of counter-arguments.

The prosecutor has no time limit to answer the appeal, but Moussawi told AP he would submit his brief within days of receiving the defense appeal.

While the appellate court also has no deadline for its ruling, Moussawi said it would act quickly because it had no other cases under consideration.

"The appeals panel will take less than a month to make its decision," Moussawi said.