Saddam's lawyers due to return to trial
Saddam Hussein’s lawyers will attend this week’s trial session, a month after they walked out in protest and accusing the chief judge of being biased against their client, one of the lawyers said today.
Khamis al-Obeidi said only the eight Iraqi attorneys will attend Tuesday’s session since the five foreigners defending the former president and members of his former regime could not make it into the country due to several days of curfew and violence.
“They will attend the following sessions,” al-Obeidi said.
But in Switzerland, two foreign members of Saddam’s defence team said today they were unsure when they might be allowed again to visit the former Iraqi president, accusing Iraq’s court of barring their access to their client.
On Sunday, Saddam’s chief lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, met him in Baghdad for the first time in weeks and found him “in good health and high morals as usual”, al-Obeidi said.
The lawyer said he could not meet Saddam because of a driving ban that the government imposed in Baghdad and its suburbs.
The defence team asked for the Tuesday session to be delayed because of the violence that left more than 200 people dead and dozens of mosques, mainly Sunni, attacked.
The bombing of a holy Shiite shrine in the central city of Samarra triggered the killings and attacks in central and southern Iraq.
Al-Obeidi said that if there is going to be a delay, it will be announced at the beginning of tomorrow’s session.
The lawyers return was seen as a good step.
“This is a positive step because it strengthens the ability of the defence to be effective,” said Nehal Bhuta, a Human Rights Watch lawyer monitoring the proceedings, when asked about the planned return of the lawyers.
Saddam and seven co-defendants have been on trial since October 19 in the killing of nearly 150 people from the town of Dujail after a 1982 assassination attempt against Saddam there. They face death by hanging if convicted.
Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi said Tuesday’s session will include reading the testimony of six witnesses and presenting more documentary evidence.
Bhuta, the Human Rights Watch lawyer, said it will be interesting to know why the witnesses are not going to show up in court and why did the court allow this. He added that witnesses should usually be in the courtroom in order for the defence to ask questions about their testimonies.
On Wednesday, the court said the lawyers would be allowed back to defend their clients, reversing a decision taken after they walked out of the trial on January 29, accusing chief Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman of bias against Saddam.
Court-appointed lawyers were named to replace the defence team, but Saddam and other defendants have rejected them.
Asked why they decided to return even though Abdel-Rahman is still in his post, al-Obeidi said that they have filed earlier an official request concerning the judge.
“We are not against the judge as a person. He is an Iraqi citizen and we respect all Iraqis,” al-Obeidi said. “Our problem is with the judge’s behaviour. Things will change when he changes his behaviour.”
