WASHINGTON — Two days before Americans vote in congressional midterm elections, a court in Baghdad could deliver a boost to President Bush’s party — a guilty verdict and even a death sentence for Saddam Hussein.

On November 5, the Iraqi High Tribunal is scheduled to deliver a verdict against the deposed Iraqi dictator and his co-defendants for their role in the 1985 murder of 148 Shiite Arabs in the town of Dujail. The decision would mark the Iraqi court’s first verdict against Saddam after more than two years of proceedings, three changes in chief judges, and the murder of four defense lawyers.

The decision could dominate the November 5 and 6 news cycles before the November 7 midterm elections in America, where the Iraq war has become a political loser for Republican candidates at the state and federal levels.

That, at least, is the opinion of one of Saddam’s defense lawyers, Ramsey Clark. At a press conference yesterday, the former attorney general said: “Monday was too late for a ‘November surprise,’ so they decided on Sunday. Then you would have headlines on Monday in the print media.”

Of the pending verdict and sentencing date falling so close to the midterm elections, Mr. Clark said: “It’s a crime. It’s called corruption of justice. A lot of people get sent to prison for it.”

When the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, was asked this week if the timing of the decision was maneuvered to coincide with the elections, he shrugged off the suggestion. “Well, that decision was made by the Iraqi judges,” he said on CNN. “The U.S. had nothing to do with the selection of the date.”

A verdict in the trial has been postponed twice in the last month. Earlier this week, wire services quoted sources in the court as saying the verdict and sentencing may be delayed yet again. Yesterday, however, a State Department official who requested anonymity said that he expected a verdict and sentence on Sunday.

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and Prime Minister al-Maliki of Iraq have said publicly in the last week that Saddam’s trial has dragged on too long and that they are hoping the first decisions will be handed down Sunday.

While the American Embassy does not run the tribunal in Baghdad, America still has custody over the majority of the old files recovered from the fallen regime. Those documents must be cleared by a special office at the FBI before they are handed over to the tribunal’s prosecutors because many of the old archives are still technically classified.

The spokesman for the National Security Council under President Clinton, P.J. Crowley, said yesterday that he did not think the timing of the trial was motivated by American politics. “I don’t know. It’s possible,” he said. “I think it would be a remarkable coincidence. I am not inclined to see this in a political light. I could be proven wrong. The trial has been going on for some time.”

Mr. Crowley, who is now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, added: “There have been a variety of twists and turns, with judges killed and replaced and lawyers killed. What is most significant is a public accounting of a portion of Saddam’s time in office. I don’t think we have played a significant role for the trial.”

A resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Norman Ornstein, called it “an amazing coincidence” that the Saddam verdict is scheduled to be meted out two days before the midterm elections.

“Something like this happens two days before the election, even if it is not engineered, the timing of it dilutes the impact it would have,” he said. “It is a significant event. Let’s assume it will come out guilty. It reminds people what a butcher Saddam was. …The trouble is that this has been a huge story already and now there is a sharp majority of Americans who don’t think we should be there in the first place.”

The son of President Talabani of Iraq, Qubad Talabani, said that Sunday would be a “happy day.” “It will begin to bring closure to the victims of the brutal dictator,” he said. “Complete closure, however, will come about once he has been tried for all the crimes he has committed.”

While the tribunal is ready to render a decision on Saddam’s crimes against Shiites in Dujail, it has just begun trying him for his role in orchestrating the 1988 Anfal campaign against the Kurds.