SOUTHWEST OF BAGHDAD, Iraq: Iraq’s High Tribunal is exhuming bodies from mass graves as it prepares trials against members of the ousted dictator Saddam regime over the 1991 suppression of Shias.

In a remote desert location southwest of Baghdad, investigators were Saturday carefully removing 28 skeletons poking through the sand, their skulls blindfolded with Arab scarves, hands tied behind backs and bullet holes in their clothes.

The bodies, still clad in the clothes they were killed in, were placed in body bags for transporting to Baghdad for analysis in the forensic labs in support of the eventual case.

The Baghdad lab already has 300 human remains it is analyzing from mass graves in Al-Hadher in the north from the anti-Kurd Anfal campaigns of the late 1980s and from a mass grave in Muthanna province.

Michael Trimble, head of the mass graves unit of the Regime Crimes Liaison Office, a US-funded group to assist in the trial of Saddam and his former government, said: "We have a very sophisticated lab back in Baghdad and that is where we will do the analysis under controlled conditions."

The mass graves unit has been at this remote location for the last two weeks and consists of a team of 11 forensic archeologists, anthropologists and excavators that have set up camp here to analyze sites originally identified in 2003 as potentially containing mass graves.

"There are 200 sites registered with the Ministry of Human Rights, witnesses led us to these sites," said chief investigating judge Raed al-Juhi of the Iraqi High Tribunal while visiting the site.

"Our formal documents refer to over 100,000 victims (from 1991)," said Juhi. "The unofficial information we have that is not documented until now refers to more than 180,000 victims, but for us we talk about information that has been documented."