BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein pleaded innocent to charges of murder and torture as his long-awaited trial began today with the one-time dictator arguing about the legitimacy of the court and scuffling with guards.

Saddam pleaded not guilty after he and seven former members of his regime were formally charged with murder, torture, forced expulsion and illegal imprisonment for a 1982 massacre of nearly 150 Shiites in the town of Dujail. They could face the death penalty - by hanging - if they are convicted.

The first session of the trial lasted about three hours, and the presiding judge ordered an adjournment until Nov. 28. The panel of five judges will both hear the case and render a verdict in what could be the first of several trials of Saddam for atrocities carried out during his 23-year-rule.

At the opening of the trial the 68-year-old ousted Iraqi leader - looking thin with a salt-and-pepper beard in a dark gray suit and open-collared white shirt - stood and asked the presiding judge: "Who are you? I want to know who you are."

"I do not respond to this so-called court, with all due respect to its people, and I retain my constitutional right as the president of Iraq," he said, brushing off the judge's attempts to interrupt him. "Neither do I recognize the body that has designated and authorized you, nor the aggression because all that has been built on false basis is false."

The presiding judge, Rizgar Mohammed Amin, a Kurd, tried to get Saddam to formally identify himself but Saddam refused and finally sat. Amin read his name for him, calling him the "former president of Iraq," bringing a protest from Saddam, who insisted he was still in the post two years after his capture

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Saddam and his seven co-defendants are charged with the 1982 massacre of nearly 150 Shiites in the town of Dujail. They are being tried in the former headquarters of Saddam's Baath Party.

After Amin read the defendants their rights and the charges against them - which also include forced expulsions and illegal imprisonment - he asked each for their plea, starting with Saddam.

"Mr. Saddam, go ahead. Are you guilty or innocent?"

Saddam replied quietly, "I said what I said. I am not guilty," referring to his arguments earlier in the session.

Amin read out the plea, "Innocent."

The confrontation then became physical. When a break was called, Saddam stood, smiling, and asked to step out of the room. When two guards tried to grab his arms to escort him out, he angrily shook them off.

They tried to grab him again, and Saddam struggled to free himself. Saddam and the guards shoved each other and yelled for about a minute.

It ended with Saddam getting his way, and he was allowed to walk independently, with the two guards behind him, out of the room for the break.

The other defendants include Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, Saddam's former intelligence chief Barazan Ibrahim, former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan and other lower-level Baathist civil servants.

The trial is taking place in the marble building that once served as the National Command Headquarters of his feared Baath Party.

Many Iraqis were gathered around television sets to watch. In particular, the Shiite Muslim majority and the Kurdish minority - the two communities most oppressed by Saddam's regime - have eagerly awaited the chance to see the man who ruled Iraq with unquestioned and total power held to justice.

"I'm very happy today. We've prayed for this day for years," said Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, who was an anti-Saddam opposition leader in exile for years and now is one of the fiercest proponents of the purge of Baathists from the government.

But across the Tigris River in the mainly Sunni Arab district of Azamiyah, some were embittered over the trial of Saddam, whose regime was dominated by Sunni Arabs who have now lost their power.

"Saddam is the lesser of evils," said Sahab Awad Maaruf, an engineer, comparing Saddam to the current Shiite-Kurdish led government. "He's the only legitimate leader for Iraqis."

Saddam was ousted after U.S.-led forces swept into Iraq in March 2003 and marched in to Baghdad. He fled the capital and was on the run for nearly eight months, until American forces found in him hiding in a cellar in a rural area outside his hometown of Tikrit north of Baghdad on Dec. 13, 2003.

He has been held since in a U.S. detention facility at Baghdad International Airport.