Baghdad gunmen kill third Saddam defense lawyer

By Ibon Villelabeitia and Mussab Al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – One of Saddam Hussein’s main lawyers
was shot dead on Wednesday after men in police uniforms took
him from his home, police and relatives said, the third defense
attorney to be killed since the trial opened in October.

The killing of Khamis al-Obaidi was a new setback for the
U.S.-backed court. It fueled complaints that sectarian
violence, some by Shi’ite militias within the police against
Saddam’s once dominant Sunni Arab minority, is crippling a fair
trial.

The lead defense lawyer called for the case to be suspended
and the defendants taken abroad after the death of his deputy.

Al Qaeda’s allies said in a Web posting they would kill
four Russian embassy staff kidnapped in Baghdad 18 days ago
because Moscow failed to meet a deadline to pull troops out of
Chechnya. Russia urged the group to heed Muslim calls to free
the men.

Obaidi’s wife told another defense lawyer that men in
police uniform took Obaidi from his Baghdad home around 7 a.m.

“They said ‘We’re from internal security and we need you
for questioning’,” Qatari attorney Najeeb al-Nuaimi told Al
Jazeera television. Two hours later, Obaidi’s body was dumped
on a road beside a poster honoring a Shi’ite cleric killed
under Saddam.

The attack appeared very similar to the killing of another
lawyer the day after the televised trial began in October.

Saddam and seven Baath party allies are being tried for
crimes against humanity over the deaths of Shi’ite villagers.

A police officer who identified himself as Captain Sabah
said Obaidi had been shot eight times and there were signs of
torture — both his arms were broken.

Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi said the killing would
“not affect or delay the trial and we will defy terrorism.”

It came two days after Moussawi demanded a death penalty
for Saddam and three of his former senior aides.

SUSPENSION CALL

Shopowners told Reuters three gunmen dumped the body of
Obaidi at a roundabout under a poster of a senior Shi’ite
cleric killed by Saddam’s agents in 1999. The cleric is the
father of Moqtada al-Sadr, a cleric and leader of the Mehdi
Army militia.

“They fired into the air and said ‘This is the fate of
Baathists!’,” said a vegetable seller whose shop is 10 meters
(yards) from where the body was dumped.

The area is not far from the Sadr City slum, a stronghold
of Sadr’s militia. The body of Saadoun Janabi, the first lawyer
to be killed, was also dumped nearby. Neighbors said then that
he was seized by men saying they were from the Interior
Ministry.

Unlike other defense lawyers, Obaidi, who also represented
Saddam’s half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, still lived in Iraq.

Chief defense counsel Khalil al-Dulaimi said the trial
should be suspended and the defendants taken abroad for safety:
“We hold the U.S. and Iraqi governments and particularly the
militias responsible for Obaidi’s killing,” he told Reuters.

A Western official close to the court said Obaidi was
offered protection but had turned it down. “He made his choice
not to accept it,” he said, insisting on anonymity.

Nuaimi told Jazeera that other defense lawyers had received
written death threats from pro-government Shi’ite militias.

Obaidi told Reuters last year he preferred to stay in Iraq
during court recesses: “Whatever will be will be,” he said.

The trial, which started in October, has also been marred
by the resignation of the previous judge, who complained the
Shi’ite-led government was pressuring him over the case.

Defense lawyers are due to sum up on July 10. Further
trials are expected and appeals should delay any executions
ordered.

(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin and Ahmed Rasheed in
Baghdad)