Saddam on hunger strike after lawyer is assassinated

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Saddam Hussein and his seven co-defendants went on a hunger strike Wednesday to protest the shooting death of an attorney on the ousted Iraqi leader’s defense team, their chief lawyer said – the third such killing in the 8-month-old trial.

In other violence, gunmen kidnapped roughly 85 workers north of Baghdad, forcing them into a bus and a minivan, and later released about 30 women and children. About a dozen people were killed across Iraq, and an al-Qaida-led insurgent group announced that it will execute four Russian hostages.

Lawyer Khamis al-Obeidi, a Sunni Arab who represented Saddam and his half brother Barzan Ibrahim, was abducted from his home Wednesday morning. His body was found riddled with bullets on a street near the Shiite slum of Sadr City. Police provided a photo of al-Obeidi’s face, head and shoulders drenched in blood.

Saddam’s chief attorney, Khalil al-Dulaimi, blamed the killing on the Interior Ministry, which Sunnis have alleged is infiltrated by so-called Shiite death squads.

“We strongly condemn this act and we condemn the killings done by the Interior Ministry forces against Iraqis,” he said.

There was no comment from the ministry.

Bushra al-Khalil, a Lebanese member of the defense team, said al-Obeidi was taken from his house by men dressed in police uniforms and driving four-wheel-drive vehicles used by Iraqi security forces.

However, al-Obeidi’s wife, Um Laith, was quoted on the New York Times’ Web site as saying the attackers wore civilian clothes. She said 20 men burst into their house while the couple and their children were sleeping, and identified themselves as members of an Interior Ministry security brigade.

The Times also quoted Iraqi witnesses as saying al-Obeidi was transported in a convoy by people known as belonging to the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army.

Al-Obeidi was the third member of Saddam’s defense team to be killed since the trial began Oct. 19. His colleagues said the brutal slaying was an attempt to intimidate the defense before it begins final arguments July 10, a process that will take about 10 days.

Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi said the trial would continue.

Despite the killing, Saddam’s lawyers said they would forge ahead with their closing arguments.

However, al-Dulaimi told the Associated Press in Amman, Jordan, that Saddam and his co-defendants “went on a hunger strike today to protest the killing of Khamis al-Obeidi.”

“They pledged not to end the strike until international protection is provided to the defense team,” he said.