Saddam to meet lawyer for first time

[emad]

Times
From Stephen Farrell in Baghdad



SADDAM HUSSEIN will meet a lawyer for the first time within a fortnight as his cousin “Chemical Ali” prepared to go before a judge next week to face charges relating to the massacre of Kurds.

An Iraqi lawyer has been assigned to Saddam within the past four weeks by the Iraqi Special Tribunal responsible for putting the 67-year-old former dictator and 11 of his henchmen on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, The Times has learnt.

It will be Saddam’s first meeting with a defence lawyer since he was placed in a high- security location near Baghdad after his arrest in a hole near Tikrit on December 13, 2003.

The Iraqi lawyer’s name has not been disclosed but observers familiar with the proceedings said that he was deemed by the tribunal to be one of the very few qualified as well as willing to handle the case. In July Saddam and 11 associates appeared in court to be formally notified that they were under investigation for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1404873,00.html