ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A Turkish villager who ran away with his friend's wife has offered his own wife in exchange, newspapers said on Thursday.

Farm laborer Cengiz Esme said Gulhan, his wife of 18 years, disappeared a month ago after leaving their village to go shopping in the southern Turkish town of Tarsus.

The 36-year-old said his village friend Mehmet Yaksi had telephoned him the next day and said: "I've run off with your wife .... You take my wife," the Radikal daily reported.

Esme pleaded for Gulhan to return and said he was ready to forgive her and make a fresh start elsewhere. The reports said Yaksi's wife, a mother of three, declined to comment on the situation.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A co-defendant in the trial of Saddam Hussein complained on Wednesday about the quality of cigarettes the U.S. military gave him while in custody.

Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam's former intelligence chief and one of his most feared sidekicks, also said the food was bad and he was not given blankets. He lost 18 kilos in just two months in captivity, he complained.

"We were detained by one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet it was only after four months in detention that they gave me cigarettes," said Barzan, charged with crimes against humanity.

"And then they were of the worst quality in the world."

Saddam and his co-defendants have frequently berated the Americans and their Iraqi allies over their treatment.

The former president complained earlier in the trial about having a notepad confiscated and having to walk up several flights of stairs to the courtroom because of a broken elevator.