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Uproar in court as judge ejects Saddam lawyer
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Uproar in court as judge ejects Saddam lawyer
Iraqi guards at the trial of Saddam Hussein manhandled a Lebanese lawyer from the court yesterday, ignoring her loud protests, as witnesses prepared to give testimony for the former president?s co-accused.
Defence lawyer Bushra Khalil threw her robe as she was bundled from the chamber by guards.
Amid the clamour, Saddam stood to object and declared: ?I am the president of Iraq?, only to be told sharply by Judge Raouf Abdul Rahman: ?No you are a defendant.? Khalil objected at the start of the hearing to her ejection from court in a previous session. After the argument with Abdul Rahman rose in pitch, he ordered her removed from court and described her behaviour as ?an insult to justice?.
Proceedings in the heavily-guarded courtroom in Baghdad?s Green Zone, which have seen occasional such ejections in the past, then moved ahead with two witnesses speaking in favour of Baathist judge Awad-al Bandar. . ?Did I ever kick any defence lawyer out of court?? Bandar asked his witness, a former court employee, making ironic capital of the earlier scenes of uproar. ?No. You never did,? witness Murshid Mohammed Jasim said, turning to the judge to add: ?He always gave the lawyers time to speak and was never angry with them, whatever they did.?
He also said the charge that Bandar ordered 32 Dujail youths under 18 to be executed in defiance of Iraqi law was untrue.
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