Saddam's daughter demands right to appoint lawyers

Saddam Hussein’s eldest daughter is insisting on personally endorsing the appointment of any lawyer defending her father in his forthcoming trial, a move apparently aimed at undercutting Iraqi efforts to recruit a defence team.

Raghad Saddam Hussein said lawyers seeking to help defend Saddam must join an international defence team assembled by her mother, and must co-ordinate with its spokesman, prominent Jordanian attorney Ziad al-Khasawneh.

“In order to obtain a valid power of attorney to defend Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, lawyers must co-ordinate with Mr al-Khasawneh and also acquire written consent from me personally,” she said in Amman, the Jordanian capital.

She warned that lawyers not part of the team “would be working against the interests of President Saddam and will bear the consequences of their actions.” She declined to say what prompted the move or what consequences they would face.

Raghad Hussein apparently wants to thwart the possibility that the special Iraqi tribunal that will try her father attempt to appoint lawyers unsympathetic to the ousted Iraqi leader.

Iraqi Prime Minister Eyad Allawi said last month that Saddam and his top lieutenants would go on trial soon – “I think October.” But a US official involved with the tribunal later all but dismissed that comment, saying it may be a year or more before the trials begin.

US authorities have refused to let the Jordan-based legal team or other lawyers see the former Iraqi dictator, who was arrested in December and is being held in a US-controlled jail until Iraqis are ready to take physical custody of him.

No lawyer was at Saddam’s side when he was arraigned in Baghdad in July on broad charges that included killing rival politicians over 30 years gassing Kurds in the northern town of Halabja in 1988 invading Kuwait in 1990 and suppressing Kurdish and Shiite uprisings in 1991.

Saddam’s legal team, which was appointed by the former Iraqi ruler’s wife Sajida, has said that the lives of its members would be at risk if they went to Iraq because of alleged threats by the Iraqi government.

The team comprises 20 lead lawyers from different countries, including Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, France, Britain and the United States. Another 1,500 volunteer lawyers, most of them from Arab countries, are assisting them.