AMMAN, 18 July 2004 — A group of prominent Arab lawyers seeking to defend former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said yesterday they had ensured “private protection” inside Iraq, but the “ball was in the court” of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to arrange for a meeting between the panel and the detained Iraqi leader.

“We have arranged for private protection, whereby some companies will ensure security for the team’s members during their stay inside Iraq,” the panel’s chief Mohammad Rashdan told Arab News.

“But, isn’t shameful for the United States and the Iraqi government to force us to resort to private protection while they fail to do so,” he said.

Rashdan and other team members said earlier that guaranteeing physical protection in Iraq was a key issue after they had received threats of killing by Iraqi officials, including Justice Minister Malek Dohan Al-Hassan, who yesterday escaped an assassination attempt in Baghdad.

Saddam appeared in public before a special Iraqi court for the first time on July 1, when he refused to sign the charges list in the absence of his lawyers. Rashdan said that his team had achieved another breakthrough when the Iraq Bar Association agreed “to permit 16 Arab lawyers to defend President Saddam”.

“We are now trying to convince the Association to allow non-Arab lawyers to take part in the defense assignment,” he added. “This apparently needs approval of the Justice Minister,” he said.

Among non-Arab lawyers who have volunteered to defend the imprisoned Iraqi leader was former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, Rashdan said. “We have written to the ICRC asking them to arrange for a meeting between the team and the Iraqi president, but we did not receive a reply so far,” he added.

“The ball is now in the court of the ICRC, which we hope will carry out its duties and avert the experience of Abu Ghraib prison, where it failed to report the information it had about the US abuses there,” he said.

However, an ICRC spokesman in Amman said they “had no role in this respect”. “The lawyers should address the authorities in charge,” Muin Kassis said, alluding to the US-led occupation forces and the Iraqi interim government.

He said ICRC personnel so far visited Saddam “three times”, but declined to say when they were going to pay the fourth visit. “We usually don’t discuss this issue publicly,” Kassis said.