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Saddam in court, confirms legal team sacked
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-08-24 09:13
Saddam Hussein met his lawyer and the chief judge investigating charges against him on Tuesday and confirmed that the rest of his legal team had been sacked.
"The judge asked president Saddam Hussein about his family's statement that his legal team had been fired and he confirmed it," Khalil Dulaimi, the only lawyer authorised to represent the toppled Iraqi leader, told Reuters.
A handout photograph released by the Iraqi Special Tribunal on August 23, 2005, shows former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein being questioned by Chief Investigative Judge Raid Juhi, at an undisclosed location. [Reuters] |
Saddam's family scrapped the international team of attorneys claiming to represent him and will pick a new set of heavyweight lawyers to defend him against war crimes charges, his family's lawyer, Abdel Haq Alani, said this month.
He said Saddam's family had revoked any right of attorney previously issued to any lawyers to represent Saddam, and had chosen Dulaimi who attends Saddam's court hearings as the "only authorised lawyer at this moment".
A handout photograph released by the Iraqi Special Tribunal on August 23, 2005 shows former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (R) being questioned by Chief Investigative Judge Ra'id Juhi at an undisclosed location. A statement released with the photograph said that it was taken on Tuesday, and that Saddam confirmed that he had fired his entire defense team, except for Khalil Dulaimi. [Reuters] |
Alani said Saddam's family had been irked by press statements from Arab and Western lawyers and propagandists who claimed to speak on behalf of the ousted leader, including high profile lawyers from France, Britain and the United States.
More than 2,000 lawyers had volunteered for Saddam's defence team, including former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and a daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Accused of torturing and killing thousands of Iraqis, Saddam is expected to be put on trial for his life within two months.
A handout photograph released by the Iraqi Special Tribunal on August 23, 2005 shows former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (L) being questioned by Chief Investigative Judge Raid Juhi at an undisclosed location. [Reuters] |
So far, he has been formally charged in only one case -- the mass killing of Shi'ite Muslims in the village of Dujail following a failed assassination attempt against him in 1982. If found guilty, he faces the death penalty.
The special tribunal trying Saddam released a photograph of him, Dulaimi and Ra'id Juhi, the young judge investigating accusations that Saddam committed crimes against humanity during three decades of rule.
Dulaimi said he held four hours of talks with Saddam, who is in Iraqi legal custody but is in U.S. physical custody on the outskirts of Baghdad. He did not elaborate.
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