LONDON/DOHA, 29 October 2005 — Saddam Hussein’s lawyers will ask for another delay in his trial pending a full, independent investigation into the murder of a defense lawyer, an American member of the defense team said yesterday. Ramsey Clark, a former US attorney general who is part of a committee for Saddam’s defense, said the United Nations should probe the murder of Saadoun Al-Janabi, who was kidnapped and killed one day after the trial began on Oct. 19.
“If the orders came from higher officials then you have a real problem. I don’t see how you go forward with a trial,” Clark told Reuters in an interview. “There will be motions made in court to enlist its support for a thorough investigation. It was selective violence calculated to destroy the ability of the defense to present its defense,” Clark said, adding that the motion will be made when the court reconvenes on Nov. 28.
Another defense lawyer for Saddam wrote to UN chief Kofi Annan yesterday calling for the court trying him on charges of crimes against humanity to be moved to The Hague and its Iraqi judges replaced by foreign ones. “We submit to you our request for your involvement and your good office in the present circumstances to call upon the US authority and the present government of Iraq to review the legal status of the present court and to reallocate the present court outside Iraq, i.e. The Hague, Netherlands,” said the letter to Annan from defense lawyer Najib Al-Nawimi.
Iraq’s next election has taken shape after parties flooded officials with applications to be on the Dec. 15 ballot as a deadline passed yesterday. More than 300 parties and individuals had made initial registrations last month, electoral officials said, and the final ballot paper may feature dozens, but the main campaign for parliament is likely to be fought among a handful of major groupings reflecting Iraq’s deep religious and ethnic divisions.
The ruling Shiite Islamist Alliance, newly revamped, faces the Kurdish bloc with which it has ruled in coalition since April, a secular bloc led by former Premier Iyad Allawi and at least one broad group from the Sunni Arab minority who mostly boycotted January’s election to the interim assembly.
