AMMAN, 4 July 2004 — A daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi has joined a 20-member defense panel for former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the team’s chief Mohammad Rashdan announced yesterday.
“Aysha Qaddafi, who holds a doctorate in law, has called us offering to join the team, and we welcomed that. She is now member of the defense panel for the Iraqi president,” Rashdan told Arab News.
The team includes prominent specialist in the legal profession from Arab and non-Arab countries, including France and Britain, who have already volunteered to defend the former Iraqi leader, according to Rashdan.
He revealed that the defense team had “received threats to explode the building that houses our office if we go ahead with holding press conferences here”.
“We are going to ignore these threats as well as those issued by the Iraqi ministers of defense and justice, and push ahead with plans to travel to Iraq to carry out our job,” Rashdan said.
In his first public appearing before a special court in Baghdad last week, Saddam refused to sign the list of charges, saying “this will only happen in the presence of my lawyers”.
“Whether we get protection or not, we are going to declare within two days when a number of defense lawyers will leave to Baghdad escorted by a number of journalists,” Rashdan said. “We welcome the accompanying of any journalist who wants to go with us,” he added.
Rashdan pointed out that a fresh attempt to get protection from the US-led multinational force had faltered. “We have sent a fax message to Col. Jane Sharpal, the American officer in charge of giving permits for visiting the Iraqi president, but we have not got a reply,” he said.
“We have also written to the Iraqi Bar Association and the Jordanian Bar Society,” he added.
Meanwhile, the brief lull in Iraq’s violence since sovereignty was handed over five days ago may be a strategic choice by fighters taken aback by the speedy transfer of power, a US military official said.
