Saddam's lawyer: No trial before October

The French lawyer Emanuel Lodo, one of the defense lawyers for Saddam Hussein said that the trial of the toppled president, who was accused of committing the massacre against the people of al-Dajil town in 1982, will be held in Baghdad but will not to start before next October or November.

Lodo said that procedures of the Iraqi criminal trial take into account a "period of 45 days" before the beginning of the trial.

He considered that in Saddam's case "the number of trials will be equal to number of raised accusations," noting that the "first trial, which will not start before October or November, will be a form of test for the special Iraqi government and to test the reaction of the Iraqi resistance."

Lodo explained that "the judges refuse any open trial to avoid any failure and to give a positive image about the Iraqi judiciary." He said " They, ( the judges) wanted thereby to totally control the schedule of the trials."