During a protest against the trial in Saddam's home town of Tikrit, Iraqi forces arrested one of Saddam's nephews who is accused of financing insurgents, national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said.
"Yasser Sabawi was inciting violence and giving money and bribes to the youth to turn a peaceful demonstration into a violent one," Rubaie said.
"He is one of the people who fund terrorism and we believe there is strong evidence that he is one of the channels that brings in funds used to finance the terrorist operations in the north and the northeast of the country."
Reporter missing
Meanwhile, the Guardian newspaper said that one of its reporters has disappeared in Iraq and believes he was kidnapped.
Rory Carroll, 33, an Irish citizen who is the Guardian's Baghdad correspondent, was on assignment when he vanished, the paper said in a statement on Wednesday.
"It is believed Mr. Carroll may have been taken by a group of armed men," the statement said. "The Guardian is urgently seeking information about Mr. Carroll's whereabouts and condition."
Carroll's father, Joe, said the Guardian told him three people had been with his son when he was abducted, "and one of them did get a bit roughed up but he was the only one kidnapped."
A story in the newspaper's Wednesday edition about Saddam Hussein's trial carries Carroll's byline. He has been based in Baghdad for nine months and previously reported from South Africa and Rome.
Carroll had broadcast a live report on the trial on the Romanian news channel Realitatea TV earlier on Wednesday. The station said he had been working for them on a freelance basis.
Realitatea TV said Carroll had been kidnapped after trying to learn what ordinary Iraqis thought of the trial.
Joe Carroll, a former correspondent for the Irish Times newspaper, said his son had tried to reassure him about his safety in Baghdad.
"He knew we were worried but he used to reassure us and say that it was not as dangerous as people outside think," Joe Carroll told BBC radio. "He said if you observed basic rules and security you would be OK."
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