Saddam: Lawyer killed by group 'using govt vehicles'

Three gunmen in a speeding car killed a lawyer for a co-defendant in Saddam Hussein’s trial and wounded another today in Baghdad, a member of the defence team and police said.

It was the second assassination of a Saddam defence team lawyer in less than a month.

Adel al-Zubeidi, who was representing former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, was shot to death and attorney Thamir al-Khuzaie was wounded in the ambush in the predominately Sunni Arab neighbourhood of Adil, according to lawyer Khamees Hamid al-Ubaidi.

Saddam’s main lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, blamed the government for today’s attack, telling Al-Jazeera television that the shooting was carried by “an armed group using government vehicles.”

“The aim of these organised attacks is to scare Arab and foreign lawyers,” al-Dulaimi said.

“We call upon the international community, on top of them the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to send an investigative committee because the situation is unbearable.”