AMMAN, 6 July 2004 — Two senior members of the legal panel, due to defend former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before a special Iraqi tribunal, flew to Tripoli yesterday at the outset of an “evidence collection tour”, according to team member Ziyad Najdawi.

Najdawi also told Arab News that prominent Iraqi lawyers had joined Saddam’s defense team, but “we refrain from divulging their names out of keenness on their lives.”

The panel’s chairman Mohammad Rashdan and Deputy chairman of the Arab lawyers Federation Ziyad Khasawneh headed to Tripoli “as part of a trip designed for collecting documents”, Najdawi said. “They may decide to go to other locations if the need arises,” he added.

The two men were scheduled to meet with Ayesha, daughter of the Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, and other prominent lawyers. Aysha Qaddafi, who holds a doctorate in Law, joined the former Iraqi leader’s defense team over the weekend.

Their departure came one day after Salem Chalaby, head of the Iraqi court trying Saddam, called Najdawi and informed him that the tribunal had no objection to Arab lawyers acting as counsel for the deposed Iraqi leader, provided that an Iraqi lawyer was involved in the defense process.

“We do understand this point because almost all Arab bar associations require that a local lawyer joins any foreign legal team planning to appear before national courts,” Najdawi said.

“A number of prominent Iraqi lawyers have expressed readiness to join us, but we withhold their names out of keenness on their lives,” he added, alluding to several threats the defense panel said they had received from inside and outside Iraq.

Najdawi pointed out that the 20-member legal team planned “collective travel to Iraq, whether the Americans provided us with protection or not.”

“The ball is currently in the court of the Iraq Bar Association, and we are awaiting their response,” he said.

“We are struggling to drive the idea home that the Iraqi president should not appear before the court without a lawyer,” he added.

A convoy of buses was being arranged to transport hundreds of legal experts to Baghdad in a show of support for the ousted Iraqi leader.

Issam Ghazawi, a prominent lawyer and one of the 21-strong defense team hired by Saddam’s wife, said that among the large contingent of lawyers ready to defend Saddam are 700 non Arabs, including 400 Americans and Europeans.

Two hundred legal consultants from across the world have also pledged to help in the case, he said.

“More than half of the over 2,000 lawyers volunteering to defend President Saddam are expected to join the trip,” Ghazawi said.

During his first public appearing before the Iraqi court, the former Iraqi leader refused to sign the charges list in the absence of a legal counsel.

“We have also written to the Jordanian Prime Minister Faisal Fayez asking for protection at home following threats to blow up the building that houses our office,” Najdawi said.

Meanwhile, Jordan said yesterday it had no knowledge of relatives of Saddam reportedly helping fund and arm the anti-US insurgency in Iraq from its territory.

“We have no information on this question,” government spokeswoman Asma Khodr said.

Citing US officials and a prominent Iraqi, the New York Times reported yesterday that the network operates in part from Syria and Jordan, and actively smuggles weapons, fighters and money into Iraq.

“Jordan applies its laws to anyone who violates them,” Khodr said, insisting that the government had “no information confirming” the allegations.

People “say lots of things, they draw many conclusions, but in reality without proof we cannot deal with these questions,” she said.