CNN/AP: Iraq killings raise Saddam trial doubts

[DeepModem Mom]

Iraq killings raise trial doubts
Tuesday, November 8, 2005


THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- The murder of a second defense attorney in the trial of Saddam Hussein and other former Iraqi leaders Tuesday raised doubts about the trial's future and calls from legal experts for the court to be relocated outside of Iraq.

Adel al-Zubeidi, the lawyer for former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, was shot to death and attorney Thamir al-Khuzaie was wounded in an ambush in the Iraqi capital. It was the second such assassination in a month.

Richard Goldstone, the first prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, told The Associated Press that the latest killing was a signal that it was time to pack up and move the court.

"I don't understand how you can have a fair trial in this atmosphere of insecurity, with bombs going off," Goldstone said in a telephone interview from San Diego, California.

"It is just impossible to have a public trial if you can't guarantee the safety of witnesses, judges of defense counsel."...


http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/11/08/iraq.trial.ap/index.html