Saddam lawyers demand tight security after murder

The defence team in the trial of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has demanded that the case be delayed or moved out of Iraq, following the kidnapping and murder of one of its lawyers.

The body of Sunni Arab Saadoun Sughaiyer al-Janabi was found dumped in the street with two bullet wounds in the head, ours after gunmen dressed as security forces took him from his Baghdad office.

Investigators were trying to determine if the killers were Saddam opponents lashing out at the defence team or Sunni rebels – who include many Saddam supporters – trying to disrupt the trial.

Al-Janabi was the lawyer for Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former head of Saddam’s Revolutionary Court.

Ten gunmen wearing police and military uniforms walked into al-Janabi’s office on Thursday evening in Baghdad’s Shaab neighbourhood. He went with them without resistance, police Maj Falah al-Mohammedawi said.

Hours later, his body, bearing signs of torture, was found on a pavement by the Fardous Mosque in the nearby Ur neighbourhood.

Sunni militants are known to have disguised themselves in police or military uniforms in attacks usually targeting Shiites. But Sunni Arab leaders have accused Interior Ministry forces or militias allied to the Shiite-led government of killing Sunnis taken from their homes by men in uniform.

The killing spread fear among the other 12 defence lawyers who were at Wednesday’s opening session of the trial for Saddam and seven co-defendants.

Yesterday, they demanded that the trial – now set to resume on November 28 - be postponed if investigations into the murder were not finished.

They also demanded government protection and said the trial should even be moved outside Iraq, said Khamees Hamid al-Ubaidi, one of Saddam’s two lawyers.

Moving the trial seemed highly unlikely. The government has fiercely rejected any international venue, insisting Saddam should be tried by Iraqis in Iraq.

“It is time to lay low,” al-Ubaidi said. “When something like this happens, who wouldn’t be terrified?”

Government officials, including some from the Interior Ministry, were meeting last night to discuss protecting defence lawyers, al-Ubaidi said.

Saddam and his co-defendants face possible death sentences if convicted on charges of murder and torture for the 1982 massacre of 148 Shiites in the town of Dujail. They have denied the charges.

Heavy security was provided for trial prosecutors and judges, who were considered likely targets of militants. Their names have not been revealed and their faces were not shown in the broadcast of Wednesday’s opening session - with the exception of the presiding judge and the top prosecutor, whose identities were revealed for the first time.

But no security measures were extended to the defence lawyers. Their identities have been known, though most of them have not been prominent in the press.

“The government exerts its best efforts to provide security for all people and all those involved in the trial, but we cannot provide total security because of the violence in the country,” government spokesman Laith Kubba said yesterday, condemning the murder.

“We do not know who was behind this operation. Is it designed to hinder the trial process, or is it a case of vendetta?”

Saddam’s chief lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, said after the kidnapping that defence lawyers had been threatened in recent weeks by email, mobile phone text messages and telephone calls.