AMMAN, Jordan - Saddam Hussein's lawyers are denied the same rights and resources as the prosecutors in his trial, a U.S.-based legal adviser to the deposed Iraqi leader said Sunday.
ADVERTISEMENT
Curtis Doebbler said Saddam's legal team is at a disadvantage compared with the prosecution, which he said has spent $300 million and has "hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops and dozens of American lawyers to assist them."
"All these resources have been deployed to collect evidence for more than two years" to build a case against Saddam, he said in a statement e-mailed by the Jordan-based defense team to The Associated Press.
By contrast, Doebbler said, Saddam's defense team "consists of volunteer lawyers without adequate resources or the ability to find experts (or) adequate witnesses."
He said the defense cannot visit the sites of the alleged crimes "because of the state of insecurity in Iraq."
Saddam was deposed by the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He went on trial in October 2005 along with seven members of his former regime on charges of killing 148 Shiites in the aftermath of an assassination attempt on the then-president in 1982.
Doebbler, a Washington-based law professor specializing in international law, said the non-Iraqi lawyers for the defense "cannot even enter Iraq to visit their clients regularly."
In Iraq, Saddam's attorneys are "held under virtual house arrest without access to telephones, faxes, computers, books, or any adequate facilities to do their work," he said. "Even their legal notes are read and only papers approved by American officials can be passed to their clients."
The legal team has complained that their papers were read during searches before they enter the court.
He rebuked human rights groups without citing any by name, saying they had failed to protest the conditions of Saddam's trial.
"It is quite incredible that the international community silently watches a process that continues to violate more and more human rights," he said.
"We have called to have the trial brought under United Nations auspices, but while everyone agrees that human rights are not being respected, they are too intimidated by the United States government to stand up for human rights."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060409...mJvaA8F;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
ADVERTISEMENT
Curtis Doebbler said Saddam's legal team is at a disadvantage compared with the prosecution, which he said has spent $300 million and has "hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops and dozens of American lawyers to assist them."
"All these resources have been deployed to collect evidence for more than two years" to build a case against Saddam, he said in a statement e-mailed by the Jordan-based defense team to The Associated Press.
By contrast, Doebbler said, Saddam's defense team "consists of volunteer lawyers without adequate resources or the ability to find experts (or) adequate witnesses."
He said the defense cannot visit the sites of the alleged crimes "because of the state of insecurity in Iraq."
Saddam was deposed by the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He went on trial in October 2005 along with seven members of his former regime on charges of killing 148 Shiites in the aftermath of an assassination attempt on the then-president in 1982.
Doebbler, a Washington-based law professor specializing in international law, said the non-Iraqi lawyers for the defense "cannot even enter Iraq to visit their clients regularly."
In Iraq, Saddam's attorneys are "held under virtual house arrest without access to telephones, faxes, computers, books, or any adequate facilities to do their work," he said. "Even their legal notes are read and only papers approved by American officials can be passed to their clients."
The legal team has complained that their papers were read during searches before they enter the court.
He rebuked human rights groups without citing any by name, saying they had failed to protest the conditions of Saddam's trial.
"It is quite incredible that the international community silently watches a process that continues to violate more and more human rights," he said.
"We have called to have the trial brought under United Nations auspices, but while everyone agrees that human rights are not being respected, they are too intimidated by the United States government to stand up for human rights."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060409...mJvaA8F;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
