Saddam Trial to Stay in Iraq

Saddam Trial to Stay in Iraq
By CHRIS TOMLINSON, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq -

Saddam Hussein's trial will resume on schedule
despite the slaying of two defense lawyers and the threat by others
to boycott the proceedings over an alleged lack of security, a
senior Iraqi judicial official said Sunday.



The court is ready to appoint a new team if defense lawyers fail to
appear, added Raid Juhi, one of the judges on the special tribunal
trying the former dictator and others.

Saddam's team said in a statement earlier in the day that about
1,100 Iraqi lawyers had withdrawn from the defense, arguing that
inadequate protection was evident after the killings of two
attorneys who were defending co-defendants of the ousted leader.

The statement did not say if those lawyers included Saddam's chief
Iraqi attorney, Khalil al-Dulaimi, but it said other team members
continued their duties "under complex and dangerous circumstances."
Al-Dulaimi suggested last week that defense lawyers would not show
up for the next session Nov. 28.

The attorneys who withdrew were among some 1,500 enlisted to help
Saddam's defense, mostly researching legal precedents, preparing
briefs and performing other tasks outside the courtroom, said
Jordanian lawyer Ziad al-Khasawneh, who was once part of the defense
team.

Juhi said the defense threat "will not affect the work of the
court." He said the Iraqi High Tribunal is ready to appoint new
defense lawyers if none appear.

"We have many legal experts and lawyers, and (the court) will choose
from among them" to defend Saddam and the others, he said.

That could result in further delays, Juhi conceded, saying
replacement lawyers could ask the court to postpone the trial to
give them time to prepare their case.

Still, the defense moves could leave the proceedings in disarray,
embarrassing both the Iraqi government and the United States, which
have insisted that Saddam face justice in his homeland before his
own people.

If the court appoints new attorneys, Saddam will refuse to accept
them and the trial will degenerate into "a total farce," Abdel-Haq
Alani, a London-based lawyer who is a leading member of the defense
team, told The Associated Press by phone.

"The trial would proceed in the absence of the defendant because the
defendant would refuse to cooperate," Alani said. "They might as
well sentence them without a trial."

Saddam and seven others went on trial Oct. 19 in the killing of 148
Shiite Muslims who were executed in 1982 after a failed
assassination attempt against the Iraqi leader in Dujail, a Shiite
town north of Baghdad. If convicted, they could be executed by
hanging.

One day after the trial began, a defense lawyer was abducted from
his office by 10 masked gunmen and his body was found the next day.
A second defense lawyer was shot dead and another wounded in an
ambush in Baghdad last Tuesday.

Government spokesman Laith Kubba said defense lawyers have twice
turned down invitations to move to the Green Zone, where they could
be protected by U.S. and other international troops. Iraqi President
Jalal Talabani renewed that invitation last week.

There is debate over whether Saddam's trial can be held fairly
in Iraq during the insurgency.

Michael Newton, a former State Department war crimes lawyer, said
moving the trial would be "an abdication to those who want to
substitute anarchy instead of the rule of law."

"The defense lawyers were offered protection and refused," Newton, a
professor of law at Vanderbilt University, said. "So they can't have
it both ways: They can't decline the protection they were offered
and then say that the circumstances are unsafe."

But Laura Dickinson, an associate professor at the University of
Connecticut School of Law, believes the trial ought to be moved. She
suggested the United Arab Emirates as a possible venue because
judges in Saddam's trial were trained there.

Elise Groulx, president of the International Criminal Defense
Attorneys Association, also said the violence is a troubling factor.

"Is Baghdad a war zone? That is a question that the judges and Iraqi
government must answer," Groulx said.

Moving the trial to another country — assuming one could be found to
accept it — would require Iraq's parliament to amend the law that
established the court.

Saddam's lawyers have called for creation of a special international
court, but that would require action by the U.N. Security
Council, where the United States wields a veto.

John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said
abandoning the Iraqi High Tribunal would undermine Iraq's
government.

"They want to conduct this trial under their own national
authorities, and I think the people who have undertaken these
terrorist assassinations obviously are trying to undercut the Iraqi
judicial institutions," Bolton told AP.

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