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Saddam defense team expected to appear
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-24 11:54
Defense attorneys in the trial of Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants are
expected to attend next week's session despite an earlier threat to boycott the
proceedings after two team members were assassinated, a U.S. official said
Wednesday.
The official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the case, said American and Iraqi authorities have urged defense
lawyers to accept their offers of the "most robust security possible."
Saddam Hussein is seen in this photo released
by the Iraqi Special Tribunal, showing Hussein during a meeting with Judge
Munir Haddad at an initial appearance for crimes against Shiite Faili
Kurds, in this July 21, 2005 file photo in Baghdad,
Iraq.[AP] | As a result, he said, the Iraqi tribunal expects at least one attorney for
each defendant — including Saddam's personal counsel, Khalil al-Dulaimi — to
appear at the Monday session. A total of 12 defense lawyers attended the Oct. 19
opening session.
Attempts by The Associated Press to reach al-Dulaimi on Wednesday were
unsuccessful.
However, a senior official from the Iraqi High Tribunal said talks with
defense lawyers about their security were still ongoing. He spoke on condition
of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
Fears for the safety of the defense lawyers rose after attorney Saadoun
al-Janabi was abducted by masked gunmen the day after the opening session. His
body was found the next day with bullets in his head.
On Nov. 8, defense lawyer Adel al-Zubeidi was killed in an ambush and a
colleague, Thamir al-Khuzaie, was wounded. Al-Khuzaie fled the country and asked
for asylum in Qatar.
In case the defense fails to show, the court will ask "standby" lawyers from
the tribunal's Defense Counsel Office to step in, the U.S. official said.
"They will be given adequate opportunity to meet their clients, and the court
is expected to give them that," the official said.
Saddam Hussein speaks to the Presiding Judge
Rizgur Ameen Hana al-Saedi as his trial begins in a heavily fortified
courthouse in Baghdad's Green Zone in this October 19, 2005 file
picture.[Reuters/file] | The defendants, who face
the death penalty if convicted, will have a say in who represents them but will
not be allowed to delay the proceedings, the official said. Iraqi law prohibits
defendants from representing themselves.
Saddam was captured by U.S. troops nearly two years ago after spending eight
months on the run following the fall of his regime in April 2003. He and the
others are charged in the 1982 deaths of more than 140 Shiites in the town of
Dujail north of Baghdad following an assassination attempt against him there.
It is the first of up to a dozen cases expected to be filed against the
ousted ruler and his closest lieutenants for atrocities allegedly committed
during his 23-year rule.
Politicians — including Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite whose
family members suffered from torture and imprisonment under Saddam's regime —
have made it clear they want the trial to proceed vigorously while maintaining
its transparency and fairness.
A Saddam conviction, according to Shiite and Kurdish politicians, would allow
Iraq to close a dark chapter of its history and heal some of its postwar wounds.
An insurgency led by Sunni Arabs, a minority to which Saddam belongs, has
been raging for 30 months, targeting Iraq's Shiite majority and nascent security
forces with bombings, execution-style killings and kidnappings.
The defense lawyers consistently have maintained that the tribunal trying
Saddam and the others was illegitimate because it was set up under the U.S.-led
occupation.
Their withdrawal from the case and their replacement by court-appointed
attorneys could undermine the credibility of the trial and cause delays. There
have been repeated calls in and outside Iraq for the trial to be moved outside
the country for safety reasons and to distance the proceedings from the
pressures of a nation still recovering from the effects of Saddam's rule.
Iraqi leaders have consistently rejected such calls, the latest of which came
Wednesday from a group representing lawyers across the European Union. The
Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, which represents 700,000 lawyers in
the 25 EU nations, said in a letter to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari
that a change of venue was needed after the killing of the two
lawyers.
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