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Hussein will boycott rest of his trial

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 11, 2006

BAGHDAD - Saddam Hussein and his lawyers announced they would boycott his trial even as its final phase began Monday, saying the court was unfair and demanding better security after the slaying of a senior member of the defense team.

The move means the trial could end with the same turbulence that has shaken it throughout nine months of proceedings. It raises the likelihood that the former Iraqi leader will not be on hand to deliver his closing arguments to the court later this week, before the judges adjourn to consider their verdicts.

The verdicts are expected in mid August, and Hussein and some of his seven former regime officials could face execution by hanging if convicted for crimes against humanity over a 1980s crackdown against Shiites in Dujail.

Lawyers for Hussein and three of his top co-defendants said they would not attend the trial unless a list of demands were met - chief among them, better security after one of Hussein's lawyers, Khamis al-Obeidi, was kidnapped from his Baghdad home on June 21 and shot to death. The defense team has blamed the slaying, the third of a defense lawyer since the trial began in October, on Shiite militiamen.

Hussein said in a letter to the chief judge that he would boycott because the court "lacks the lawful proceedings that are well established in international and Iraqi law."

Hussein and his defense team have held brief boycotts in the past, and chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman dismissed the defense demands, saying they were either not under the court's purview or were illegal.

[Last modified July 11, 2006, 01:19:14]