Saddam's defence lawyer walks out of genocide trial
Saddam Hussein’s chief lawyer walked out of a Baghdad court today after most of his requests were rejected, but the chief judge immediately appointed other lawyers to defend the deposed former Iraqi president.
The walkout came shortly after chief defence lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi ended a month-long boycott of the trial in which Saddam and six other defendants are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity for a 1987-88 offensive against Iraq’s Kurdish population.
Al-Dulaimi has said that if Saddam is condemned to death in a separate trial, where he is charged with killing nearly 150 people from the town of Dujail, it could provoke civil war in Iraq and unrest throughout the Middle East.
The verdict in the Dujail trial is expected on November 5. Saddam and seven others are charged with crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 Muslim Shiites after an attempt to assassinate him in Dujail in 1982.
When Saddam’s trial for the Kurdish offensive resumed today, al-Dulaimi filed 12 requests, including that the court should allow foreign lawyers to attend the trial without prior court permission. Al-Dulaimi had said yesterday that he was ending his boycott in order to make the requests.
The judge denied most of the requests, but he granted one, saying he would instruct prosecutors to provide the defence with copies of documents al-Dulaimi said were damaged when his offices in Baghdad were allegedly ransacked earlier this month.
Chief judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa rebuked al-Dulaimi for insisting on referring to Saddam as president of Iraq.
“There is only one president here – it’s me, the court’s president,” the judge said.
Al-Dulaimi replied there was nothing in Iraqi law to bar him from using the title of “the legitimate president of Iraq”.
The judge did not respond to all of al-Dulaimi’s requests, but the defence lawyer decided to take a stand. “I inform the court that I’m withdrawing,” he said.
The judge responded: “I allow you to withdraw. Go ahead.”
Al-Dulaimi yesterday said he had written to US President George Bush.
“I warned him against the death penalty and against any other decision that would inflame a civil war in Iraq and send fire throughout the region,” al-Dulaimi said in Baghdad. He did not say when he sent the letter to Bush.
The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, has rejected al-Dulaimi’s suggestion that the Dujail verdict had been timed to influence the US Congressional elections, which are due two days later. A death sentence could potentially help Bush’s Republican Party by reminding American voters of Saddam’s crimes.
Speaking of the verdict’s timing, Khalilzad said: “That decision was made by the Iraqi judges.”
The United States assists the court with logistics and security, Khalilzad told CNN, “but we don’t determine the date for holding the meetings or the trial or the date for making the decision or announcing the decision with regard to Saddam Hussein”.
In the Kurdish trial, the defence team had boycotted the proceedings since September 24 after the dismissal of the chief judge, who was criticised as being too soft on Saddam. The lawyers said later they also were protesting the court’s refusal to give them more time to review some 10,000 documents in the trial.
Prosecutors allege that the military offensive against the Kurds, codenamed Operation Anfal, killed 180,000 people.
Saddam and one other defendant in the trial are charged with genocide against the Kurds.
