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Saddam's lawyers face obstacles to demands
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-14 21:05
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.
The attorneys who withdrew were among some 1,500 enlisted to defend Saddam,
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.
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.
Kuwait and the Kurdish territory of northern Iraq also have been suggested as
alternative locations.
But Iraqis feel strongly about trying Saddam at home and would almost
certainly oppose a foreign court, where defendants may be spared a possible
death sentence and witnesses and victims would be far removed from the process.
John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said abandoning the
Iraqi High Tribunal would hand a victory to insurgents.
"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 the AP.
Creating a special international court would require
action by the U.N. Security Council, where the United States wields a veto.
China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said the issue had never been raised in the
council.
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