Wednesday, January 17, 2007

american progress in iraq ...

Saddam's former top lawyer threatened

AMMAN, Jordan, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's top defense lawyer is reported to have vanished after Saddam's execution to avoid arrest, one of his colleagues said.

One of Saddam's former lawyers, Jordanian Issam al-Ghazawi, told United Press International in Amman Wednesday there was "information that the Iraqi authorities will issue an arrest warrant for attorney Khalil Dulaimi," who headed Saddam's defense team.

Saddam's former top lawyer threatened

AMMAN, Jordan, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's top defense lawyer is reported to have vanished after Saddam's execution to avoid arrest, one of his colleagues said.

One of Saddam's former lawyers, Jordanian Issam al-Ghazawi, told United Press International in Amman Wednesday there was "information that the Iraqi authorities will issue an arrest warrant for attorney Khalil Dulaimi," who headed Saddam's defense team.

Dulaimi's whereabouts have been unknown since the former Iraqi president was hanged on Dec. 30 on charges of killing 148 people in the Shiite town of Dujail following a foiled assassination attempt against Saddam in 1982.

During the trial of the former leader and his aides, five Iraqi defense lawyers were assassinated and a number of others fled the country for their lives.

In a related development, lawyers representing Saddam's half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan al-Tikriti and Awad al-Bandar, the former chief of the Revolutionary Court in the Dujail case -- who were also put to death this week -- urged the United Nations to investigate the executions.

A statement issued by four lawyers from Iraq, Jordan, Tunisia and Egypt called on the U.N. and international rights organization to form an independent commission to probe the circumstances surrounding the execution of Tikriti and al-Bandar.

They said the decapitation of Tikriti "could not have been a result of the hanging, but a brutal act of murder and mutilation of the body." The Iraqi government said Tikriti's head was dismembered in a "rare occurrence" at the time of his hanging on Monday.

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