Saddam lawyers drop threats

2005-11-24 15:20

Amman - Defence lawyers will attend next week's trial of Saddam Hussein and seven top members of his ousted regime, dropping a threat to boycott the proceedings because of the killing of two counsel, a spokesperson for the defence said on Thursday.

"All the lawyers will attend the trial on Monday and a decision has been taken not to leave the (toppled Iraqi) President (Saddam Hussein) alone," Issam Ghazawi told The Associated Press.

"We will not allow the court to appoint other lawyers," Ghazawi said. "The lawyers are forced to attend the hearings, despite serious threats on their lives, but they want to do that to serve justice."

Defence lawyers have feared for their lives since October 20, the day after the trial began, when attorney Saadoun al-Janabi was kidnapped by masked gunmen. His body was found the next day with bullet holes in the head.

Request for UN probe

On November 8, defence 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.

The defence has asked the authorities for increased protection and threatened to boycott the trial unless this was provided.

Saddam and his co-defendants are charged with the 1982 massacre of more than 140 Shiites in Dujail, north of Baghdad, following an attempt to assassinate him in the town.

Were the defence lawyers to boycott the trial, the Iraqi High Tribunal would ask "standby" lawyers from its own Defence Counsel Office to step in, a United States official has told The AP in Baghdad.

The US official, briefing reporters in Baghdad on Wednesday on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said he expected the defence lawyers to attend the hearing on Monday.

He said American and Iraqi authorities have urged defence lawyers to accept their offers of the "most robust security possible."

Ghazawi said the defence team had received no such offer. "We read about these things only in the media, but we have not received anything official from the court and I'm not aware that any of our requests have been answered," he told the AP.

The lawyers had asked the court to provide them with extra protection, or housing inside the Green Zone in central Baghdad, which is guarded by the US military. They had also called for a United Nations probe into the killing of their two colleagues.

- SAPA