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Defence lawyers can meet Saddam 'in coming days'

29/12/2006 16h44

©AFP - Asif HassanAMMAN (AFP) - US authorities in Iraq have authorised Saddam Hussein's defence lawyers to meet the deposed leader "in the coming days", his lawyers have said, amid speculation he could be executed as early as Saturday.

"The defence committee asked for a meeting between lawyers and the president (Saddam) during the coming days and the American side accepted," said a statement from the Amman-based legal team sent to AFP Friday.

Iraq has been nervously awaiting Saddam's execution which some officials had suggested might take place on Saturday.

Saddam's defence counsel has fed speculation about the execution by announcing that he had been asked to send someone to collect Saddam's belongings from the US base where he is being held.

"We have begun preparations on the matter (the meeting)," the statement said, adding that "this confirms the president is still being held by the American authorities".

"The only certain information we have till now is that the Americans have asked the chief lawyer to come (to Iraq) and get the personal effects of president Saddam Hussein and (his half brother, also due to hang) Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti," the statement said.

Defence lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said earlier that he did not think that the US military had already handed Saddam over to the Iraqi authorities who will carry out the execution.

Bangladeshis demonstrate against the death sentence for Saddam Hussain
©AFP - Farjana K. GodhulyAnother defence lawyer, Issam Ghazaoui, said: "We have no information, no one has told us if the president will be executed tomorrow or when... In Iraq anything is possible."

"The speed with which the Iraqi authorities and the American administration want to execute (Saddam) confirms without a doubt that the tribunal was nothing but a cover for a decision already taken to liquidate the president," the statement said.

Saddam, Barzan and Awad Ahmed al-Bandar al-Sadun, a former chief judge of the revolutionary court, were sentenced to hang on November 5 by the Iraqi High Tribunal for the massacre of 148 Shiite villagers from Dujail north of Baghdad after an assassination attempt there against the Iraqi leader in 1982.

On December 26, a panel of appeals court judges confirmed the sentence and ordered that Saddam and two former aides be hanged within 30 days.