BAGHDAD, 24 November 2005 — Defense lawyers in Saddam Hussein’s trial have ended a boycott and will be present for the next court session after security concerns were resolved, a US official close to the court said yesterday.

“A number of security options were offered to them and most of them have accepted an option,” the official told reporters in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The Iraqi Bar Association has lifted its boycott and we expect there’ll be at least one defense counsel there for each of the defendants,” he said.

However, a source close to one of the defense teams based in Amman said details were still being worked out and said an offer had only been made to protect three lawyers’ families, not the whole team of lawyers, who number around a dozen.

The US official said the Iraqi High Tribunal, the US— supported body conducting the trial, had made arrangements to have court-appointed counsel take over defense responsibilities if defendant-appointed lawyers did not show.

The defense lawyers, backed by the Iraqi Bar Association, imposed a boycott after two members of the defense teams were shot and killed days after the trial began on Oct. 19, plunging proceedings into chaos.

Another lawyer, who survived one of those assassination attempts, fled Iraq earlier this month after he received persistent death threats. He has sought refuge in Qatar.

The killings and death threats prompted calls for the trial to be moved abroad, but the tribunal charged with bringing Saddam and members of his regime to justice insists that this trial and all future ones will take place in Iraq.

Witnesses to Appear

The next session of the first case will kick off on Monday, Nov. 28. Saddam and seven co-defendants are charged with crimes against humanity in the deaths of 148 Shiite men following an attempt on Saddam’s life in 1982.

Barring another successful motion by the defense for a delay, the trial is expected to proceed uninterrupted for several days, with witnesses appearing in court for the first time under intense security restrictions.

Since the opening three-hour session in October, the five— judge panel trying the case has heard testimony from a hospitalized former intelligence chief who has since died. Defense lawyers did not attend that bedside session.

The chief judge, Rizgar Mohammed Amin, said after the first session that around 30 witnesses due to give evidence had refused to come to Baghdad from Dujail, where the attempt on Saddam’s life took place, because they feared for their lives.

Security, including a witness protection program, has been bolstered since then and several witnesses will appear on Monday, the US official said, although he could not say how many. At least some are expected to give evidence from behind a screen to protect their identities.

“It’s up to individual witnesses to decide whether they appear and how they appear,” said the official. “I expect the court will hear witness testimony on (Monday) and for several days thereafter... that is the plan,” he said.

Meanwhile, a top US military spokesman called yesterday for parts of Iraq’s raging insurgency to be brought into the political process, while insisting that Al-Qaeda was being hit hard by ongoing offensives.

“We understand the capabilities, the vulnerabilities and the intentions of each group of the insurgency — the foreign fighters, the Iraqi rejectionists and the Saddamists,” Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch told reporters.

“The group in the middle, the Iraqi rejectionists — (which) includes the Shiite rejectionists and the Sunni rejectionists — we believe that deliberate outreach will allow them to participate in the political process and allow them to become part of the solution and not part of the problem,” he said.

Lynch was commenting on last week’s Iraqi reconciliation conference in Cairo which called for elements of the insurgency to be involved in the talks and recognized the importance of distinguishing between different factions of the resistance.

US officials had initially expressed dissatisfaction with the final statement from the Arab League-sponsored meeting which condemned “terrorism” but also spoke of “the legitimate right of people to resistance”.

Lynch said that a recently concluded offensive in the country’s restive western province of Al-Anbar had disrupted the Al-Qaeda in Iraq group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi enough to allow reconstruction projects to proceed.

“We come close to Zarqawi continuously and at one point in time, in the not too distant future, we are going to get Zarqawi,” he said.