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Saddam, defence team to boycott next trial session
Saddam's lawyers want the court to be transferred anywhere outside Iraq, even if it is in the USA.
Saddam Hussein and his lawyers will boycott the next session of the deposed leader's trial in Baghdad to protest the alleged bias of the new chief judge appointed to hear the case, his chief lawyer said on Monday.
"There is a unanimous decision by the defence team to not attend Wednesday's hearing because of the comedy we witnessed in the previous trial," Iraqi lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said as he arrived in Jordan from Iraq.
Khalil added that if Saddam was forced to attend the proceedings, he will not sit in the place designated for him, but will stand in a corner to protest against the measures taken by the judge.
"The previous court hearing lacked the basics of a fair and honest trial, and the judge was biased against the defendants, who under the law are innocent until proven guilty," al-Dulaimi said.
On Sunday, the new judge had ordered a co-defendant and Jordanian lawyer Saleh Armouti to be expelled from the courtroom. The entire defence team had then left in protest.
Despite the turmoil in the courtroom, Chief Judge Raouf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman pushed ahead, replacing the defence lawyers with court-appointed attorneys, and heard three prosecution witnesses before adjourning the trial until Wednesday.
It was Abdel-Rahman's first session at the helm after replacing a jurist who stepped down under criticism that he was not doing enough to stop Saddam and his half brother, co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim, from dominating the trial with frequent outbursts and disruptions.
Defence lawyers criticised the tough approach, saying it was preventing Saddam and his seven co-defendants from getting a fair trial. The eight could face death by hanging if convicted in the killing of at least 140 Shiites after a July 1982 attempt on Saddam's life in the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad.
On Monday, Armouti demanded that the chief judge be dismissed 'because he has harmed the Iraqi justice system'.
He said that he had also submitted a demand to the Iraqi Bar Association 'to take disciplinary measures against the court-appointed attorneys as they wanted to attend the hearings without Saddam's consent, which is illegal'.
Al-Dulaimi declined to say when the lawyers would resume attending court sessions, but he insisted several demands first be met.
He said that the Chief Judge must apologise to Armouti for 'offending' the Jordanian lawyer, ensure 'complete protection' to the lawyers and their families, something the defence team had been promised but has not yet been given, and the transfer of the trial to a venue outside Iraq.
"We appeal to international human rights organisations and all peace-loving forces to hear our pleas for transferring the court to any place outside Iraq, even if it was in the United States," he said.
"The United States has a military base and it may be possible to hold the trial there," he said.
Al-Dulaimi also rejected the appointment of new lawyers. "It's illegal to have new lawyers appointed. My client has rejected those lawyers. Also, the judge can't appoint lawyers when the defendants already have legal representation."
