ISTANBUL (AFP) -- The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI), a grouping of NGOs and intellectuals opposed to the war in Iraq, yesterday accused the United States of causing more deaths in Iraq than ousted president Saddam Hussain.

"With two wars and 13 years of criminal sanctions, the United States have been responsible for more deaths in Iraq than Saddam Hussain," Larry Everest, a journalist, told hundreds of anti-war activists gathered in Istanbul.

Founded in 2003, the WTI is modelled on the 1960s Russell Tribunal, created by the British philosopher Bertrand Russell to denounce the war in Vietnam. It has held about 20 sessions so far in different locations around the world.

A symbolic verdict was to be handed down on Monday by the 14 "jurors of conscience" - including the Indian novelist Arundhati Roy, winner of the 1997 Booker Prize for The God of Small Things.

The tribunal has for the past two years been gathering what it says is evidence that the war launched in March 2003 to oust Saddam was illegal, and it has also been gathering evidence of violations allegedly committed by coalition troops.

Its verdict on Monday after its final session is expected to condemn both the United States and Britain.

Yesterday Roy told the gathering: ""The evidence collated in this tribunal should ... be used by the International Criminal Court - whose jurisdiction the United States does not recognise - to try as war criminals George Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard, Silvio Berlusconi, and all those government officials, army generals, and corporate CEOs who participated in this war and now benefit from it."

She added that the tribunal was "an act of resistance," "a defence mounted against one of the most cowardly wars ever fought in history."

Hans von Sponeck, former director of the UN's oil-for-food programme for Iraq, told the gathering that the humanitarian programme "was totally irrelevant."

"The UN handling of Iraq will be listed as a massive failure," von Sponeck said. "We didn't speak out despite knowing what the economic sanctions had created as a human disaster."

He singled out the US and British governments for allegedly blocking projects that would, he said, have allowed more people to survive.

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