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Saddam trial defense lawyer murdered

Posted on: Tuesday, 8 November 2005, 21:23 CST

By Lutfi Abu Oun and Waleed Ibrahim

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a second defense lawyer in the trial of Saddam Hussein and his aides on Tuesday and the former Iraqi president's own counsel demanded the court be moved abroad, out of reach of the U.S.-backed government.

The sectarian anger dividing Iraq pervades the proceedings but ministers refused to consider a move abroad after a lawyer for another of Saddam's co-accused was killed three weeks ago and the government spokesman declined fresh comment.

The defense renewed a threat to boycott the court, which is next due to sit at the end of the month.

Another defense lawyer was slightly wounded in the attack on their car in Baghdad; three weeks ago a colleague was abducted and shot the day after the start of proceedings in the trial for crimes against humanity on October 19. Both dead men made vocal, televised contributions on what has so far been the only day of hearings.

In Tuesday's attack, Adil al-Zubeidi was killed and his colleague Thamer Hamoud al-Khuzaie wounded when their car came under fire in the western Baghdad district of Hay al-Adil, police and defense team sources said. Both were working for Saddam's brother and his former vice president

"This happened in broad daylight in front of the U.S. occupation forces," Saddam's chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi told Al Jazeera television. "A group of armed men, using as usual government vehicles, killed one of the most prominent lawyers in the defense team ... The U.S. and Iraqi governments have to take responsibility with regards to these barbaric attacks."

The start of the trial was watched on television by Iraqis around the country but some in Saddam's Sunni Arab minority condemned it as a show-trial and "victors' justice" orchestrated by the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government.

The government has denied involvement in the murder of defense lawyer Saadoun al-Janabi the day after the trial opened but his killing renewed accusations of sectarian violence involving government forces and pro-government Shi'ite militias ranged against Saddam's fellow minority Sunni Arabs. His killers said they were from the Interior Ministry, witnesses said.

Defense URGES U.N. INQUIRY

The defense team, which had already threatened to boycott the next hearing on November 28 unless measures were taken to protect them, said a fair trial was impossible in current circumstances and the trial should be moved abroad.

The two lawyers shot on Tuesday were defending Saddam's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan. Millions watching across Iraq last month saw Zubeidi argue forcefully with the judge, brandishing documents and jabbing his finger as he protested the validity of evidence.

In last month's attack, Janabi, representing another of the eight defendants, was kidnapped from his office and shot.

"From this day forth, we will not recognize this court and we demand the transfer of President Saddam and his aides to a neutral country," Dulaimi said, urging all lawyers to boycott the court and the United Nations to conduct an investigation.

DEFENDING "DEVIL"

A friend of Zubeidi who is also a lawyer told Reuters that Zubeidi had been well aware of the risks of his assignment: "I am afraid. I feel my life is being threatened," Zubeidi told the friend on Monday, attended by bodyguards at a Baghdad court.

Richard Dicker, who is monitoring the trial for Human Rights Watch in New York said: "This second killing ... heightens the concerns that we've had all along.

"It's urgent if this trial is to go forward that effective measures are put in place to protect the defense lawyers ... The Iraqi government and U.S. advisers need to go the extra mile."

Thabit Fahad, a senior lawyer in Baghdad, said the entire judicial system was at risk from such attacks: "A lawyer wants to defend his client even if he is the Devil himself. That is his job and the nature of his profession."

One of the reasons the judge gave for adjourning the trial was that witnesses had been too scared to turn up. Only one of the five trial judges has been identified or seen in public.

The defense team has said they do not trust the police or other Shi'ite-dominated security forces to protect them, prompting human rights groups to call for alternative measures.

The defendants are charged with ordering and overseeing the killing of more than 140 Shi'ite Muslim men from Dujail after an attack on the presidential motorcade as it passed through the village, 60 km (35 miles) north of Baghdad, in July 1982.

The trial is the first case to be brought against the former president, who was ousted in April 2003. Investigative judges are also pursuing further cases including the invasion of Kuwait, the suppression of Shi'ites and Marsh Arabs, the ethnic cleansing of Kurds and political murders.

Bomb attacks aimed at Iraqi security forces killed at least nine people on Tuesday as violence continued unabated just over five weeks before a December 15 election that Washington hopes will set Iraq more firmly on the road to peace and democracy.

In western Iraq near the Syrian border, Operation Steel Curtain entered its fourth day, with Marines and Iraqi troops pushing through the dusty town of Qusayba in search of al Qaeda insurgents. The U.S. military says it has killed 36 rebels and detained 180 in the operation and has lost one U.S. Marine dead.

(Additional reporting by Aref Mohammed in Kirkuk, Faris al- Mehdawi in Baquba, Paul Tait, Mussab Al-Khairalla, Mariam Karouny, Claudia Parsons, Alastair Macdonald and Ahmed Rashid in Baghdad, Abdel-Razzak Hameed in Basra and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman)

Source: REUTERS

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