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Warning: Defending Saddam Can Be Fatal !!!
Another Lawyer Killed
By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: November 8, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 8 - Gunmen today ambushed two more defense lawyers involved in the prosecution of Saddam Hussein and his underlings, killing one and deepening the obstacles to plans for a resumption of the war crimes trial by an Iraqi tribunal here later this month.
It was the second such killing of a defense lawyer in less than three weeks.
Police spokesmen said the attack, in a western suburb of Baghdad, involved two lawyers representing Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former vice president under Mr. Hussein and a prominent co-defendant. The second lawyer was wounded and taken to a hospital, where he was reported to be in serious condition.
On Oct. 20, gunmen killed the lead lawyer for another defendant in the trial, the former chief judge of Mr. Hussein's revolutionary court.
The police said the ambush today appeared to have been carefully planned, with three carloads of gunmen attacking the lawyers' car as it drove through the suburb of al-Adel at lunchtime.
Attackers in one car then boldly followed the ambulance carrying the surviving lawyer to the Yarmouk hospital, the police said, perhaps looking for a second chance to kill him. The spokesman said there were no immediate suspects.
The ambush came as Iraqi court officials were preparing a fresh overture to defense lawyers in a bid to persuade them to abandon the boycott of the trial that they declared after their colleague's killing on Oct. 20.
The chief prosecutor, Jaafar al-Mousawi, said in a telephone interview today that that effort would continue. But in any case, he said, the court will reconvene on schedule on Nov. 28 and will appoint lawyers of its own to represent Mr. Hussein and his co-defendants if their own lawyers fail to appear.
But it was far from clear that the court's credibility, crucial to its acceptance in Iraq and abroad, could survive the buffeting that it seems likely to face if it proceeds with court-appointed defense lawyers.
Although the arrangement has long been part of Iraqi criminal procedures in cases where defendants have no lawyers of their own, it was routinely exploited in Mr. Hussein's years in power. Then, victims of his repression, when they were allowed any legal representation, were often given state-appointed lawyers who acted more as agents of the prosecution.
Even before the recent defense lawyer's killings, the court was struggling to gain acceptance as a legitimate forum for trying Mr. Hussein and his associates. In part, its problems have flowed from the fact that it owed its first 20 months of existence to a decree of the American occupation authority.
The political liability that entailed, especially among Hussein loyalists, was only partly lifted when Iraq's transitional parliament passed a law last month adopting the court as a fully Iraqi institution. Even that had no legal effect until hours before the Hussein trial began last month, when it was formally promulgated by publication in Iraq's official government gazette.
By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: November 8, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 8 - Gunmen today ambushed two more defense lawyers involved in the prosecution of Saddam Hussein and his underlings, killing one and deepening the obstacles to plans for a resumption of the war crimes trial by an Iraqi tribunal here later this month.
It was the second such killing of a defense lawyer in less than three weeks.
Police spokesmen said the attack, in a western suburb of Baghdad, involved two lawyers representing Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former vice president under Mr. Hussein and a prominent co-defendant. The second lawyer was wounded and taken to a hospital, where he was reported to be in serious condition.
On Oct. 20, gunmen killed the lead lawyer for another defendant in the trial, the former chief judge of Mr. Hussein's revolutionary court.
The police said the ambush today appeared to have been carefully planned, with three carloads of gunmen attacking the lawyers' car as it drove through the suburb of al-Adel at lunchtime.
Attackers in one car then boldly followed the ambulance carrying the surviving lawyer to the Yarmouk hospital, the police said, perhaps looking for a second chance to kill him. The spokesman said there were no immediate suspects.
The ambush came as Iraqi court officials were preparing a fresh overture to defense lawyers in a bid to persuade them to abandon the boycott of the trial that they declared after their colleague's killing on Oct. 20.
The chief prosecutor, Jaafar al-Mousawi, said in a telephone interview today that that effort would continue. But in any case, he said, the court will reconvene on schedule on Nov. 28 and will appoint lawyers of its own to represent Mr. Hussein and his co-defendants if their own lawyers fail to appear.
But it was far from clear that the court's credibility, crucial to its acceptance in Iraq and abroad, could survive the buffeting that it seems likely to face if it proceeds with court-appointed defense lawyers.
Although the arrangement has long been part of Iraqi criminal procedures in cases where defendants have no lawyers of their own, it was routinely exploited in Mr. Hussein's years in power. Then, victims of his repression, when they were allowed any legal representation, were often given state-appointed lawyers who acted more as agents of the prosecution.
Even before the recent defense lawyer's killings, the court was struggling to gain acceptance as a legitimate forum for trying Mr. Hussein and his associates. In part, its problems have flowed from the fact that it owed its first 20 months of existence to a decree of the American occupation authority.
The political liability that entailed, especially among Hussein loyalists, was only partly lifted when Iraq's transitional parliament passed a law last month adopting the court as a fully Iraqi institution. Even that had no legal effect until hours before the Hussein trial began last month, when it was formally promulgated by publication in Iraq's official government gazette.
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