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by AlJazeera.net
Wednesday 29 December
2004, 20:36 Makka Time, 17:36
Ramsey Clark said
Washington should also be put on trial
Former US
attorney-general Ramsey Clark is to join Saddam Hussein's defence team, a
spokesman for the ousted Iraqi president's lawyers says.
Ziad Khasawna said on
Wednesday that Clark, who held the office of attorney-general under US
president Lyndon Johnson, had "honoured and inspired" the legal team by
agreeing to help defend Saddam.
The former top US
justice official, who arrived on Tuesday in Jordan where the defence team
is based, has become known as a left-wing lawyer and firm critic of US
foreign policy since leaving office.
He visited the ousted
leader in Baghdad in February 2003 just before the US-lead invasion and
has also been involved with the defence of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan
Milosevic, on trial for war crimes at a UN court in The Hague.
Clark comment
Clark said in the
Jordanian capital Amman that his principle concern was protecting the
former president's rights, who only saw a lawyer for the first time this
month - a year after his capture.
"In international law,
anyone accused of crime has the right to be tried by a confident,
independent and impartial court, and there can be no fair trail without
those qualities," he said.
"The special court in
Iraq was created by the Iraqi governing council, which is nothing more
than a creation of the US military occupation and has no authority in law
as a criminal court," he said.
The Iraq Special
Tribunal was established by the US-led administration in Iraq last
December to try members of the former government.
Clark also said the US
itself must be tried for the November assault on Falluja, destruction of
houses, torture in prisons and its role in the deaths of thousands of
Iraqis in the war.
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