Saddam lawyers still mull return to court
(AFP) Updated: 2006-10-18 17:08
AMMAN - Saddam Hussein's defence team said they needed to discuss a string of
demands they have made of the court trying him for genocide before they can call
off a boycott of the proceedings.
Ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein
adjusts his headphones as he listens to witness testimony during his trial
held in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. Saddam's defence team said
they needed to discuss a string of demands they have made of the court
trying him for genocide before they can call off a boycott of the
proceedings. [AFP] |
"There will be contacts with the court, under the supervision of the
Americans, and in light of that we will decide whether or not to end the
boycott," Saddam's chief Iraqi lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi told AFP.
"We have legal demands and they will be discussed with the court, and then we
will see," Dulaimi said in a telephone interview.
"Our priority now is to allow Arab and foreign lawyers to attend court
proceedings ... and that the court gives us time to examine 10,000 documents
presented by the state prosecution," Dulaimi said.
"We estimate that we need at least three months to study these documents," he
said.
"We will hold intensive consultations with lawyers from inside and outside
the defence team," Dulaimi added.
On Tuesday the presiding judge agreed to a request by the defendants for
their lawyers to return to the courtroom after a month-long boycott, during
which the defence has been replaced by seven court-appointed lawyers.
The ousted Iraqi leader is on trial with six others over the 1987-1988 Anfal
campaign of bombings and gas attacks against the Kurds which prosecutors say
left 182,000 people dead.
The defence team has boycotted the trial since September after the Iraqi
government sacked chief judge Abdullah al-Ameri, who was replaced by Mohammed
al-Oreibi al-Khalifah.
The defence team has denounced the action as "blatant intervention by the
Iraqi government" in judicial procedures and issued over the past weeks a series
of demands for their return to court.
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