AMMAN, 8 July 2004 — Saddam Hussein’s legal team has rallied hundreds of volunteer Arab lawyers and was promised fresh African support by the daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, one of them said yesterday.
Fresh from a trip to Tripoli, Jordanian lawyer Ziad Khassawneh said he and two of Saddam’s Amman-based legal counsel had met with Aisha Qaddafi, who pledged “her full support” to their cause.
“It was a good trip. We met Dr. Qaddafi and she expressed her full legal support, and told us that President Saddam Hussein is like her father,” Khassawneh said. “She also promised us to appeal to African lawyers to join the defense team,” he said, adding that some Libyan lawyers are expected soon in Amman for further consultations.
Qaddafi joined the defense team which was appointed by Saddam’s wife Sajida and his three daughters, and which now counts 21 members, including a French and an American lawyer.
French member Emmanuel Ludot told a press conference Tuesday in Paris that Libya had proposed “financial and logistical help” to defend the ousted Iraqi leader. “We have set up an initial fund (which) effectively comes from gifts from different countries... The only one I am able to tell you about is from Libya,” Ludot said.
In addition the team has the backing of “hundreds” of volunteer Arab and Jordanian lawyers, Khassawneh said. “Five hundred have officially registered but we expect them to reach 1,000,” he said.
“We will hold a meeting with a group of volunteer lawyers” to evaluate the situation and plan for a trip to Iraq, he said.
“We are determined to go to Iraq” in a convoy with journalists, Khassawneh said, hoping the trip could take place “in the middle of next week”. But he also admitted that they could fail in their endeavor.
“I am sure that Iraq will not accept us and that they will not allow us to cross” from Jordan, he said, adding that in that case they would organize a “sit in” along the international border.
Another member, Jordanian lawyer Issam Ghazzawi, told AFP Sunday that the defense team had selected an Iraqi lawyer to represent Saddam in front of the Iraqi Special Tribunal in accordance with Iraqi law.
Meanwhile, the Cairo-based Union of Arab Lawyers denounced Saddam’s trial yesterday and claimed the head of the Special Iraqi Tribunal trying the deposed dictator was linked with an Israeli law firm.
The “conditions under which (Saddam) was arrested (and) prosecuted totally fail to respect either judicial procedures or international charters related to human rights and fair trial,” the union said in a statement.
“Therefore this trial is null and void, in all its procedures and verdicts.” It said the handing of the former president as a prisoner of war to Iraqi authorities by the occupation forces violated the Geneva Conventions.
“The court in front of which President Saddam Hussein is being tried is a special exceptional court established by the so-called Interim Governing Authority,” the statement continued.
“This authority itself was formed by a decree issued by Paul Bremer, the (former) representative of the American occupation in Iraq,” it said, implying the court was illegitimate.
