Another Saddam Co-Defendant's Lawyer Slain

Another Saddam Co-Defendant's Lawyer Slain

Tuesday November 8, 2005 2:46 PM

By SAMEER N. YACOUB

Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Three gunmen in a speeding car killed a lawyer for a co-defendant in Saddam Hussein's trial and wounded another Tuesday in Baghdad, a member of the defense team and police said. It was the second assassination of a Saddam defense 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 neighborhood of Adil, according to lawyer Khamees Hamid al-Ubaidi.

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

``The aim of these organized 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.''

He called for moving Saddam and his colleagues into a neutral country. Al-Dulaimi said defense lawyers do not recognize the trial's next date which comes on Nov. 28.

Police Lt. Khalid Hassan said the two lawyers were driving through the Adil neighborhood about 12:45 p.m. when an Opel with a driver and three masked gunmen pulled alongside and sprayed their car witth automatic weapons fire.

Al-Zubeidi also represented Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid, a former Baath party official. Al-Khuzaie represents Saddam's half-brother, co-defendant Barazan Ibrahim.

Saddam and seven others have been charged with the 1982 killings of Shiite villagers in Dujail, a town north of Baghdad, following an assassination attempt. The trial opened Oct. 19 and was suspended until Nov. 28 to allow the defense time to prepare its case.

On Oct. 20, Saadoun al-Janabi, was abducted from his office by 10 masked gunmen, a day after he attended the first session of the trial, acting as the lawyer for co-defendant Awad al-Bandar.

Al-Janabi's body, with two bullet shots to the head, was found hours later on a sidewalk near Fardous Mosque in the eastern neighborhood of Ur in Baghdad, near the site of his office.

The assassination of a second lawyer associated with the trial was likely to raise new questions about whether this country can conduct such a sensitive prosecution in the midst of insurgency and domestic turmoil.

Following al-Janabi's death, members of the defense team said they had suspended further dealings with the special court until their safety is guaranteed. Al-Ubaidi said that the entire defense team had rejected an offer of guards from the Interior Ministry, pointing to frequent Sunni Arab accusations that ministry forces or Shiite militias linked to the government have killed members of the minority that was dominant under Saddam.

He said then that they were talking with U.S. officials about getting protection from American troops. But a later defense team statement said that it would seek United Nations protection for the Iraqi lawyers because they do not trust either the U.S. military or the Iraqi government to ensure their safety.

Saddam's defense team, which includes some 1,500 lawyers who act as advisers, is led by Khalid al-Dulaimi and Abdel Haq Alani, an Iraqi-born lawyer based in Britain. Alani is the top legal consultant to Saddam's daughter, Raghad, and believed to be backbone of defense team.