[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 11



IRAQ:

Hussein attorney slams tribunal, Bush----Lawyer also calls for tribunal to
be abolished, trial to be moved


He's questioned the legality of the court. He's called the trial "pure
chaos." He's called a judge's attempt to protect attorneys and witnesses
"absurd."

Now, a member of Saddam Hussein's defense team is saying they need an
extra month to prepare the defense of the former Iraqi dictator because
the court has been uncooperative.

Ramsey Clark, who served as U.S. attorney general under President Lyndon
B. Johnson, said Tuesday that Hussein's legal team won't be prepared to
defend its client against war crime charges May 15, the date the team is
scheduled to present its case to the Iraqi Special Tribunal in Baghdad.

Hussein's defense lawyers "haven't had the central documents to prepare
the defense, which we have asked for time and time again. We don't even
have the transcript of the testimony that has been given," Clark said.

At a Washington news conference, Clark leveled accusations at the White
House, which he said is using the tribunal "to vindicate its invasion, to
validate occupation and to make the world believe that the Iraqi people
demanded that Saddam Hussein and other leaders in his government be
executed."

He added in a written statement, "The trial is clearly the planned
continuation of the essentially unilateral war of aggression waged by the
Bush administration against Iraq."

Clark also echoed remarks he made earlier this year about the legal
validity of the court, which he questions because of its alleged inability
to protect participants and because of what he feels is the court's bias
against Hussein.

The former Iraqi leader and 7 other members of his regime are charged with
torturing and killing 148 civilians in the Shiite town of Dujail 23 years
ago. The killings are believed to be retaliation for a failed
assassination attempt on Hussein, a Sunni.

Clark, who said Tuesday that the tribunal should be abolished and that
Hussein's trial should be moved to a neutral court, made similar comments
earlier this year. 2 defense attorneys had already been killed when he
joined the defense team in late November.

Sadoon Janabi, an attorney for Awad Hamad Bandar, the former chief judge
of Hussein's Revolutionary Court, was kidnapped and shot in the head
October 20, the day after the trial began. Adil Muhammed al-Zubaidi, who
was representing former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, was shot
to death November 8.

Though Clark did not request a specific change of venue for the Hussein
trial, he suggested that Hussein may have a better shot at a fair trial in
the United States.

The U.S. court system holds promise, Clark said, because a federal jury
recently declined to issue a death sentence to Zacarias Moussaoui, the al
Qaeda operative who pleaded guilty to having a connection to the September
11, 2001, attacks.

Clark said the Moussaoui jury acted fairly in deciding that there wasn't
enough evidence to justify the death penalty, and he said an American jury
would be more objective than the Iraqi Special Tribunal.

Clark has been a civil rights attorney and controversial activist in
recent years. He opposed the war in Iraq and met with Hussein in February
2003, just before the U.S.-led invasion of the country.

In January, Clark suggested during an interview with The Associated Press
that a lack of proper medical care caused the death of former Yugoslavian
President Slobodan Milosevic, whom Clark said "became president during a
time of great crisis."

Milosevic died during a U.N. War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague,
Netherlands, where he faced 66 counts of war crimes, including genocide.

Saying it was important to remember Milosevic's "struggle to preserve
Yugoslavia," Clark told the AP that during the tribunal, "everyone knew
his health was failing, but he was not granted proper medical care. Amid
the struggle, his heart gave up."

(source: CNN)