Lawyers: Hussein attacked at court; US denies incident
AMMAN -- Lawyers for Saddam Hussein said yesterday their client was attacked by an unidentified man during a court appearance in Baghdad this week, but US forces guarding him denied any such incident took place.
A statement issued by the former Iraqi leader's international legal team, which has an office in Amman, said he was attacked and exchanged blows with another person in a hearing Thursday attended by Hussein's main Iraqi lawyer Khalil Dulaimi.
''As the president stood to leave the courtroom one of those present attacked him and there was an exchange of blows between the man and the president," the statement said, adding that the head of the tribunal did nothing to stop the assault.
The statement quoted Dulaimi as saying the American guard who protected Hussein in the courtroom did not intervene and that he lodged a formal complaint against the tribunal.
The defense team did not say if Hussein was hurt.
However, a spokeswoman for detainee operations in Iraq, the US military unit charged with overseeing the custody of prisoners including Hussein, said no such incident took place.
''Nothing like that happened with Hussein whatsoever," Lieutenant Kristy Miller said.
The US military is in charge of Hussein's physical custody, although he is in Iraqi legal custody. Miller said that as far as she knew Hussein almost never leaves US military sight.
Officials at the Iraqi Special Tribunal, the court set up to try the former president and other members of his defunct Baath Party, were not reachable for comment.
The defense team said it would boycott the tribunal or any committee interrogating Hussein until he was given the right to proper legal representation by a team of international lawyers, including allowing former US attorney general Ramsey Clark, leading Hussein's team of Western lawyers, to see him in prison.
''Repeated interrogations have taken place without a lawyer of choice present, no informed choice of legal counsel has been allowed, on evidence presented against Mr. Saddam Hussein and his due process rights have been irreparably violated," Clark told Reuters in a statement.
The tribunal on Friday released pictures of Hussein being questioned over the suppression of Shi'ite Muslims after a 1991 uprising, when his regime is accused of killing up to 150,000 people.
So far, Hussein has been formally charged in only one case -- the killing of Shi'ite Muslims in the village of Dujail following a failed assassination attempt in 1982. A date for that trial is expected to be set soon.
