One of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's lawyers was shot to death yesterday after he was abducted from his home by men wearing police uniforms in Baghdad, court and police officials said.
Khamis al-Obeidi, who rep-resented Saddam and his half-brother Barzan Ibrahim, was abducted from his house at 7am yesterday, Saddam's top lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi said.
Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi said that al-Obeidi had been killed, although he did not provide more details.
Al-Obeidi was shot to death and his body was found on the street near the Shiite slum of Sadr City, police Lieutenant Thaer Mahmoud said.
Unlike al-Dulaimi, who shuttles between Amman, Jordan, and the Iraqi capital, al-Obeidi chose to continue to live in Baghdad despite the tenuous security and the killing of two members of the trial's defense team last year.
Al-Dulaimi blamed the Interior Ministry, which Sunnis have alleged is infiltrated by so-called Shiite death squads.
"We strongly condemn this act and we condemn the killings done by the Interior Ministry forces against Iraqis," he said, adding US-led forces also bore responsibility because the war had allowed Shiite militias to gain influence.
"We call for the trial to be stopped and to transfer the defendants out of Iraq because it is no longer a safe place," he said.
"We hold the US and Iraqi governments and particularly the militias responsible for Obaidi's killing."
Sunni Arabs were dominant under Saddam's rule, but lost power to majority Shiites after his ouster in April 2003.
A dozen masked gunmen abducted defense lawyer Saadoun al-Janabi from his Baghdad office the day after the trial's opening session on Oct. 19. His body was found the next day with two bullets in his skull. Nearly three weeks later, defense lawyer Adel al-Zubeidi was assassinated in a brazen daylight ambush in Baghdad. A colleague who was wounded fled the country.
The defense has asked the authorities for increased protection and threatened to boycott the trial unless this is provided.
The deposed leader and the other seven are charged with killing more than 140 people in the town of Dujail in 1982.
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