[News] Ramsey Clark to join Saddam Hussein's defence team
News at freedomarchives.org
News at freedomarchives.org
Wed Dec 29 08:45:13 EST 2004
Ex-US attorney-general to help Saddam
by
Wednesday 29 December 2004 10:53 AM GMT
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Ramsey Clark said Washington should also be put on trial
Former US attorney-general Ramsey Clark is to join Saddam Hussein's defence
team, a spokesman for the ousted Iraqi president's lawyers says.
Ziad Khasawna said on Wednesday that Clark, who held the office of
attorney-general under US president Lyndon Johnson, had "honoured and
inspired" the legal team by agreeing to help defend Saddam.
The former top US justice official, who arrived on Tuesday in Jordan where
the defence team is based, has become known as a left-wing lawyer and firm
critic of US foreign policy since leaving office.
He visited Saddam in Baghdad in February 2003 just before the US-lead
invasion and has also been involved with the defence of former Yugoslav
leader Slobodan Milosevic, on trial for war crimes at a UN court in The Hague.
Clark comment
Clark said in the Jordanian capital Amman that his principle concern was
protecting the former president's rights, who only saw a lawyer for the
first time this month - a year after his capture.
"In international law, anyone accused of crime has the right to be tried by
a confident, independent and impartial court, and there can be no fair
trail without those qualities," he said.
"The special court in Iraq was created by the Iraqi governing council,
which is nothing more than a creation of the US military occupation and has
no authority in law as a criminal court," he said.
The Iraq Special Tribunal was established by the US-led administration in
Iraq last December to try members of the former government.
Clark also said the US itself must be tried for the November assault on
Falluja, destruction of houses, torture in prisons and its role in the
deaths of thousands of Iraqis in the war.
AFP
By
You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/11388BFC-9290-4141-B0E1-BEA75A1B20F8.htm
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