BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 19 - On the first day of Saddam Hussein's trial, 30 months after he was ousted by American tanks, the former dictator seemed a shadow of the merciless figure he cut in nearly a quarter of a century as Iraq's tyrannical ruler.

Thinner, tie-less, in a store-bought suit and shoes provided by his American captors, his face worn into furrows after nearly two years of solitary confinement in a military prison, the 68-year-old former dictator dominated the three-hour hearing on Wednesday before a special Iraqi tribunal with his prideful defiance.

A panel of five judges is trying Mr. Hussein and seven others for the torture and killing of 148 men and teenage boys who were rounded up after an assassination attempt against Mr. Hussein in 1982 in a Shiite town, Dujail. The trial, which was adjourned until Nov. 28, is the first of what may be dozens of trials for the former ruler and his top associates.

Mr. Hussein mocked the American military occupation and seemed to send a message that he considered it doomed. He said he would not recognize the court's authority because it was a pawn of the American "aggressors," and "all things that are based on a falsehood are false."

Refusing even to confirm his name, he told the chief judge, Rizgur Mohammad Amin, "I am not going to answer to this so-called court, out of respect for the truth and the will of the Iraqi people."