BAGHDAD, Iraq – Prosecutors in the trial of Saddam Hussein yesterday played an audiotape said to be a phone call between the former Iraqi leader and one of his co-defendants discussing the destruction of farmland during a crackdown against Shiites in the 1980s.

In the tape, a voice purported to be that of Taha Yassin Ramadan said the leveling of farms and palm groves in the town of Dujail, carried out as retaliation for an attack on Saddam there, had been nearly completed and that the owners would be given compensation.

He also talks of moving “suspect elements” out of Dujail and the nearby town of Balad and bringing in “replacements, meaning we will try to change the social reality” in the two towns.

A voice said to be Saddam’s but not readily identifiable as such asked questions in the tape, which was several minutes long. Prosecutors told the court that they had obtained the tape earlier but did not say from where.

Co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim disputed the tape, as well as reports by handwriting experts presented in the past three sessions. In the reports the experts concluded that signatures on documents connected to the crackdown were those of defendants.

“Where are you getting these documents? Whose hands are behind them?” Mr. Ibrahim said. “Forging documents and imitating signatures is an age-old phenomenon.”

After a session of about 90 minutes, chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman adjourned the court to May 15. The eight defendants are on trial for the deaths of 148 Shiites, the imprisonment of hundreds more, and destruction of farmlands in a crackdown launched in the town of Dujail following a 1982 assassination attempt against Saddam.