By Kamal Taha
Amman - Despite the murder of four colleagues, Arab, US and European lawyers have rallied to the defence of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who faces the death penalty for crimes against humanity.
"Everyone who takes part in the trial is subject to huge dangers," lead Iraqi lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi told AFP.
On October 20, 2005, a day after the start of the Dujail trial, in which Saddam and seven others stand accused over the massacre of 148 Shiites, defence attorney Saadun Janabi was murdered in Baghdad.
'Many people, who hate Saddam, have put hurdles in our path' Two others, and the assistant of one of them have since been killed. The most recent was Saddam lawyer Khamis Obeidi, murdered in June.
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"The defence team has faced many dangers and difficulties from the minute it was set up and has paid a heavy price for its positions," Dulaimi said in a telephone interview in Amman.
"We work in a country that has lost its sovereignty, where violence and killings are rife and where unauthorised militiamen rule the street," Dulaimi said.
"The rule of law has been replaced by the rule of the gun in Iraq."
Over the past year "defence lawyers have faced daily threats, their offices have been raided and their movements closely scrutinised inside Iraq", Dulaimi said.
As a result many Iraqi defence lawyers have moved outside Iraq, including neighbouring Jordan, where the defence team was formed just a fortnight after the capture of Saddam by US troops in Iraq on December 13, 2003.
"It was necessary in order to carry on our humanitarian mission and defend our clients," said Dulaimi, who has been keeping a low profile in Jordan between court hearings in Baghdad.
Dulaimi is among about a dozen principal attorneys for Saddam and the other defendants in the trial over the killing of Shi'a villagers in 1982 after an attempt to assassinate Saddam.
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