BAGHDAD, 9 November 2005 — Three gunmen in a speeding car killed a defense lawyer in the Saddam Hussein trial and wounded another yesterday. It was the second assassination of a defense lawyer in the trial and raised doubts whether such an emotionally charged case can proceed in this turbulent country.
Adel Al-Zubeidi, who was representing former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, was shot dead and attorney Thamir Al-Khuzaie was wounded in the ambush in the predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhood of Adil, police said.
Saddam’s main lawyer, Khalil Al-Dulaimi, blamed the government for the attack, telling Al-Jazeera television that the shooting was carried out by “an armed group using government vehicles.”
“The aim of these organized attacks is to scare Arab and foreign lawyers,” Dulaimi said. “We call upon the international community, on top of them the secretary-general of the United Nations, to send an investigative committee because the situation is unbearable.”
He called for moving Saddam and his colleagues into a neutral country. Dulaimi said defense lawyers did not recognize the trial’s next date, Nov. 28.
Dulaimi’s call was echoed by Richard Goldstone, the first prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and one of the world’s most prominent jurists.
“I don’t understand how you can have a fair trial in this atmosphere of insecurity, with bombs going off,” Goldstone told The Associated Press by telephone. “It is just impossible to have a public trial if you can’t guarantee the safety of witnesses, judges or defense counsel.”
He said that without a radical improvement in security, “I don’t see any possibility of having an appropriate trial in Baghdad.” He suggested the trial be moved to another Arab country “where there is security.”
Saddam and seven others have been charged with the 1982 killings of Shiite villagers in Dujail, a town north of Baghdad, following an assassination attempt against the leader. The trial opened Oct. 19 and was suspended until late November to allow the defense time to prepare its case.
On Oct. 20, Saadoun Al-Janabi, was abducted from his office by 10 masked gunmen, a day after he attended the first session of the trial, acting as the lawyer for co-defendant Awad Al-Bandar. Janabi’s body was found hours later with two bullet shots to the head near his office in Baghdad.
Zubeidi also represented Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid, a former Baath party official. Khuzaie represents Saddam’s half brother, co-defendant Barazan Ibrahim Al-Tikriti.
Police Lt. Khalid Hassan said the two lawyers were driving through the Adil neighborhood about 12.45 p.m. when an Opel with a driver and three masked gunmen pulled alongside and sprayed their car with automatic weapons fire.
Chief prosecutor Jaafar Al-Mousawi expressed regret over the attack against “our colleagues in the judiciary” and said the court would do everything possible “to arrange security for the lawyers.”
“God willing, this incident will not affect the coming session,” Mousawi said.
However, Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of Human Rights Watch, said the latest attack shows that the Iraqi government needs “to reassess whether the conditions guaranteeing rights of every defendant exist.” “It is clear that whatever the government is doing is not working and is not adequate,” she said. “They have to go back and figure out how to create conditions necessary for a fair trial, above all the safety of the defense team.”
Elsewhere, the US military said yesterday that Marines killed five insurgents trying to plant explosives and captured 10 others the day before in the western city of Ramadi as American forces there stepped up their campaign to suppress deadly roadside bombs. Roadside bombs killed at least seven Iraqi security troops across the country yesterday.
Four Americans died Monday evening in a suicide car bombing in southwestern Baghdad, the military said. A civilian translator also was killed in the attack.
