Saddam to shun genocide trial
2006-10-08 14:26
Amman - Saddam Hussein's defence team will continue to boycott his trial on charges of genocide against Iraq's Kurdish minority when it resumes this week, his lead Iraqi lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said on Sunday.
"We met president Saddam Hussein on October 2 and presented him a series of observations about the trial and he instructed us to boycott Monday's hearing," Dulaimi said on the eve of the trial's resumption in Baghdad.
"The defence team has therefore decided to boycott the entire Anfal trial," he told AFP.
The ousted Iraqi leader is on trial with six co-defendants over the 1987-1988 Anfal campaign of bombings and gas attacks against the Kurds which prosecutors say left 182 000 people dead.
Dulaimi said defence lawyers will stay away from the trial because of Iraqi "government intervention", including the sacking in September of chief judge Abdullah al-Ameri who was replaced with Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah.
The removal of Ameri caused an uproar, prompting a walkout by the entire defence team who then went on to boycott the hearings.
"The new judge is now considered an enemy in the trial, particularly after the murder of one of his relatives," Dulaimi added.
Gunmen last month killed Oreibi's brother-in-law and wounded his nephew in a drive-by shooting, in the latest attack targeting people involved in the legal proceedings against Saddam.
Dulaimi also accused the court of failing to give the defence team adequate time to examine 10 000 documents linked to the Anfal case, which the defence team has called a political "farce" aimed at seeking revenge against Saddam.
However, he said the defence team will still attend a new hearing scheduled for October 16 in Saddam's first trial over the killing of 148 Shiites from the village of Dujail in the 1980s.
Saddam is on trial with seven co-defendants, including his half brother and former secret police chief Barzan al-Tikriti, over the Dujail killings. They face the death penalty if found guilty.