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Saudi lawyer joins Saddam team
29/03/2006 13:18 - (SA)
Dubai - A Saudi woman lawyer has joined the team defending ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and seven former aides from charges of crimes against humanity, Al-Hayat newspaper said on Wednesday.
Reem al-Habib, 29, told the paper she has received preliminary approval to join the team and is awaiting a formal response to her request from the Iraqi bar association in Baghdad.
"It is a personal decision and does not represent the position or point of view of the Saudi government," she said.
"I felt I could help in showing justice in this case."
Habib works as a corporate lawyer in western Saudi Arabia, an ultra-conservative yet evolving country where women are fighting for more rights, including being able to drive.
Central role
She is a graduate of Harvard Law School in the United States.
If approved, Habib would join Lebanese lawyer Bushra al-Khalil as the second woman on the team.
Saddam's daughter Raghad, who lives in Jordan, has approved of Habib, saying she would play an instrumental role in the trial set to resume on April 5.
"It is not only symbolic. She will have real and central role," Raghad told the Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily.
Saddam and the others have been on trial by the Iraqi High Tribunal since October over the killing of 148 Shi'ites from a village where the former Iraqi president escaped assassination in 1982.
They face hanging if convicted.
Saddam's lawyers have repeatedly denounced the court as illegitimate, because it was set up by US authorities in the wake of the 2003 invasion.
- AFP
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