Saddam's family 'kept in dark about his health'

A French lawyer representing Saddam Hussein says the former Iraqi leader’s family has received no information about his health in detention.

Jacques Verges said he believes the United States has violated the Geneva Conventions on several counts – including by keeping Saddam’s family in the dark about his health. He is being held by US forces at an undisclosed location.

“His family hasn’t received any news about his physical or mental health,” Verges said yesterday.

Verges, known for taking on controversial clients including terrorists and a Nazi leader, said that he received a letter from Saddam’s family requesting that he defend the former leader. He has agreed to do so. US officials have not yet commented on Verges’ announcement.

The lawyer said his most pressing work would be to ensure that Iraq’s occupying forces respected the 1949 conventions signed in Switzerland.

Referring to the televised footage of Saddam’s medical exam after his capture in December, Verges said: “It’s against the Geneva Conventions to interrogate a man, examine and exhibit him like an animal at a fair, with a doctor acting more like a veterinarian – looking at his teeth, his hair, his tongue.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross visited Saddam in jail for the first time in February.

The ICRC does not release details of such visits or the prisoner’s confinement. However, Saddam did write a letter to his family that was to be delivered once the United States confirmed it does not contain any hidden messages to his followers. The lawyer did not address that letter.

Verges also said he hopes to take Saddam’s case to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

Though the United States has not ratified the 1998 treaty establishing the court, Verges said he still believed that other nations that took part in the US-led war, including Britain and Spain, could be held responsible there.

The court, however, has previously indicated that it does not have jurisdiction over events that occurred in Iraq, which also never ratified its founding treaty.

Verges has defended Klaus Barbie, a Nazi Gestapo chief in France during the Second World War.

Last month, Khieu Samphan, a former Khmer Rouge leader, said he had picked Verges to defend him at a proposed genocide trial for surviving leaders of the group that ruled Cambodia in the 1970s.