Saddam lawyer: US blocking meetings
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-06 09:23

Saddam Hussein's chief lawyer on Sunday claimed U.S. forces turned down two defense requests to meet with the deposed Iraqi leader and his co-defendants.

Khalil al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press that two requests — one by him and the second by other defense lawyers in Iraq — presented to U.S. military authorities in Baghdad on Friday and Saturday were "rejected."

He said no reasons were cited.

There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials in Baghdad, who may no longer regard al-Dulaimi as part of Saddam's legal counsel.

In a stormy session last Sunday, chief judge Raouf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman ordered Saddam out of the courtroom for arguing with him over the former president's refusal to accept court-appointed lawyers. The original defense team had walked out in protest after the judge threw out a Jordanian lawyer together with one of Saddam's co-defendants.

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein argues with chief Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman after his half brother, Barzan Ibrahim, not seen, was forcibly removed from the trial held in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, Sunday Jan. 29, 2006. [AP/file]

Raid Juhi, the judge who investigated the case against Saddam and his co-defendants, said such requests routinely come to the Iraqi High Tribunal and not to U.S. military authorities in Iraq.

"We had not received any requests from defense lawyers to meet with Saddam and others," Juhi, who is also the tribunal's spokesman, told The Associated Press in Baghdad.

In a written statement released in Jordan later, al-Dulaimi claimed that "Saddam and his comrades are detained in very bad conditions." He did not elaborate, but insisted that the defendants "are denied their rights to a fair and impartial trial."

He also asked the international community to pressure the U.S. "to restore back the status quo" that prevailed before Saddam was deposed in April 2003.

U.S. forces captured Saddam in December 2003 after the former president had been in the run for eight months. His custody was formally transferred to Iraqi authorities when the United States restored Iraq's sovereignty in June 2004, although he remains in detention at a U.S. military facility.

The absence of the ousted Iraqi leader and his defense team at the trial could further undermine the credibility of the proceedings. The trial has already been beset by long delays, the assassination of two defense lawyers and the resignation of its first chief judge amid allegations he failed to rein in Saddam.

Al-Dulaimi said Sunday that there had been no contacts between him and the Iraqi High Tribunal since the lawyers' boycotted the hearings a week ago. "We won't make any contact until all our demands are met," he said.

The demands include Abdel-Rahman be removed from the current trial and any other legal proceedings against Saddam. Al-Dulaimi and other lawyers believe that the chief Iraqi judge, a Kurd, was biased because his hometown of Halabja was subjected to a 1988 poison gas attack allegedly ordered by the former president.

Some 5,000 Kurds were killed in that attack, including several of Abdel-Rahman's relatives.

Saddam and seven co-defendants are on trial in the deaths of more than 140 Shiites after a 1982 attempt on the ex-president's life in the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad. They face death by hanging if convicted.

Saddam's trial is set to resume on Feb. 13.