Saddam's wife assigns a Jordanian lawyer to defend her husband
Iraq-Jordan, Politics, 4/27/2004

The prominent Jordanian lawyer Muhammad Najib al-Rashdan got an official authorization to defend the toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from his wife and Saddam's daughters who fell in the fist of the American occupation forces in December 2003, 8 months after his rule was toppled.

Lawyer al-Rashdan said in a statement in Amman on Sunday evening that he had got the signature of Sajida Kheiraluuah Talfah, wife of Saddam Hussein on behalf of her self and her daughters Raghad, Rana and Hala during her stay in the Syrian capital Damascus after her fleeing from Iraq following the American- British occupation of the country in 2003. Al-Rashdan said he finds no difficulty in following up contacts with Mrs. Sajida in the context of this case.

Unconfirmed reports indicate that Sajida Kheirallah moved several weeks ago to live in Doha while her daughters Raghad and Rana and their nine children live in Jordan since Autumn 2003. Saddam has two sons ode and Qusai who were killed in an attack for the American forces in al-Musil to the north of Iraq in August 2003.

Al-Rashdan said that he asked the American embassy in Amman to follow up the question of his defense of Saddam Hussein but did not so far receive an official answer and that he also asked for the same from the Swiss government in its being the sponsor of the Geneva agreement but did not receive an answer. He attributed the slow response of the Swiss government to the US practiced pressures on it.

The lawyer said he studies the issue of filing a case against the American government to pressure it in order to visit his client Saddam Hussein.

As for the trial of the former President, al-Rashdan said that the governing council in Iraq does not have from the legal aspect any authority to make this trial. He expressed fears over saddam's life from his American jailers.

The American occupation forces had appointed Salem al- Chalabi, nephew of member of the governing council and leaders of the Iraqi national congress Ahmad al-Clabai- as chairman of the court commission which is presumed to try Saddam Hussein over what is considered by Washington as war crimes.

The Jordanian lawyer builds his strategy to defend Saddam on defying both the US and Britain to provide any " legal cover or base for the aggression against Iraq and therefore all allegations to detain Saddam are null." Worthy mentioning that al-Rashdan was a member in the Baath Arab socialist Party, Jordan Branch until 1990. In 1982 he volunteered within the al-Yarmouk people's units, dispatched then by the late Jordanian King al-Hussein Bin Talal to the Iraqi fighting front during the war with Iran between 1980- 1988.

Al-Rashdan had two cases that ended up not in the interest of the former Iraqi government. The first was in 1992 when Kuwaiti filed a case in London against Iraq demanding USD 600 million as a compensation for its planes fleet two years after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the second was in 1998 when Iraq thought of trying the US in Washington because of the consequences of using depleted Uranium in shelling and missiles that targeted the country.

Previous Stories:
  An attempt to smuggle the epitaph of Michael Aflaq tomb   (3/26/2004)
  Sadoun Hammadi in Jordan   (3/1/2004)

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