Baghdad, Iraq – Saddam Hussein and his seven co-defendants went on a hunger strike Wednesday, their chief lawyer said, to protest the shooting death of an attorney on the ousted Iraqi leader’s defense team, 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-Qaeda-led insurgent group announced that it will execute four Russian hostages.
Lawyer Khamis al-Obeidi, a Sunni Arab who represented Hussein and his half brother Barzan Ibrahim, was abducted from his home Wednesday morning by men wearing police uniforms, his colleagues said.
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.
Hussein’s chief attorney, Khalil al-Dulaimi, blamed the killing on the Interior Ministry, which Sunnis have alleged is infiltrated by 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. Hit squads and other gangs are known to disguise themselves as police officers.
Married and with six children, al-Obeidi was the third member of Hussein’s defense team to be killed since the trial began Oct. 19.
Al-Dulaimi and 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.
“We consider his killing a message to us in the defense: ‘To continue what you are doing will result in death in broad daylight on the streets of Baghdad.’ It is a message that’s written in blood,” said Mohammed Moneib, an Egyptian lawyer retained by Hussein.
Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi said the trial would continue.
“We will defy terrorism,” al-Moussawi told The Associated Press. “We will continue with the trial and will not be deterred,” he said.
The prosecution has demanded the death penalty for Hussein in the killing of 148 Shiites during a crackdown against the town of Dujayl in the 1980s.
Al-Dulaimi told AP in Amman, Jordan, that Hussein 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.”
Al-Moussawi noted that members of the defense had turned down an offer to live with their families in Baghdad’s heavily protected Green Zone, home to the Iraqi government, parliament and the U.S. Embassy.
State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said that “every form of protection and assistance” is offered to the prosecution and defense, but “unfortunately, in the case of this individual, he refused” them.
