Saddam Trial Lawyer Found Dead

A defense lawyer in Saddam Hussein's mass murder trial who was kidnapped Thursday night has been found dead, police and a top lawyers' union official said on Friday.

The body of Saadoun Sughaiyer al-Janabi was found dumped near a Baghdad mosque. He had been abducted from his office Thursday evening, a day after participating in the first session of the trial, acting as the lawyer of one Saddam's seven co-defendants.

His body, with two bullet shots to the head, was found hours later on a sidewalk near Fardous Mosque in the eastern neighborhood of Ur, near the site of his office, police said. His identity was confirmed on Friday by the police.

Diaa al-Saadi, a senior lawyers syndicate official, said al-Janabi's family confirmed to him al-Janabi was dead. "He was killed. It is confirmed," al-Saadi said.

"This will have grave repercussions. This will hinder lawyers from defending those held for political reasons," al-Saadi warned.

Earlier, police searched the capital in early morning hours for the lawyer of one of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants by gunmen in an area of Baghdad known for suicide car bomb attacks and the killing of Shiite and Sunni Arab clerics.

"Police special forces started search operations early this morning in the suspected areas around Sadr city in eastern Baghdad," police Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi of the Interior Ministry said in an interview.

Heavy protection was provided for prosecutors and judges in the Saddam trial, on the theory that they were likely targets of pro-Saddam insurgents seeking revenge. Their names have not been revealed and their faces were not shown in the broadcast of Wednesday's opening session - with the exception of the presiding judge and the top prosecutor, whose identities were revealed for the first time just before the trial.

But security measures do not appear to have been extended to the defense lawyers for Saddam and his seven co-defendants.

"The trial of Saddam Hussein is taking place under the toughest circumstances, with witnesses intimidated and lawyers for both defense and prosecution threatened," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk, "because the perception in Iraq is that the stakes are so high."

"The best the Iraqi police can do is attempt to protect all participants in an atmosphere that is far from secure," said Falk, "which today's kidnapping underscores."

Thursday evening, 10 masked gunmen burst into the office of lawyer Saadoun Sughaiyer al-Janabi and dragged him onto the street in the eastern Shaab district. Al-Janabi is one of two attorneys for Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former head of Saddam's revolutionary court — one of seven Baath Party officials being tried with Saddam.

That region where the kidnapping took place includes Sadr City, a large mostly Shiite and poor area of Baghdad, where Rory Carroll, 33, the Baghdad correspondent for the British newspaper The Guardian, was released unharmed Thursday, one day after being kidnapped there by unidentified gunmen. A group of Sadr City residents reportedly raided the area where he was being held by criminals and freed him.

For months, the Shaab district where al-Janabi was captured has been the scene of attacks by insurgents and violence between its mixed population of Sunnis and Shiites.

On Wednesday, the opening day of Saddam's trial, Al-Janabi was one of 13 defense lawyers there, seated at desks along the side of the courtroom. Some of the lawyers were shown in the TV broadcast of the trial, but it was not immediately known if al-Janabi appeared.

Saddam has pleaded innocent to charges of murder, torture, forced expulsion and illegal imprisonment stemming from a 1982 massacre of 148 Shiites in Dujail, a mainly Shiite town north of Baghdad, following a failed attempt on Saddam's life. The former dictator and his co-defendants could be sentenced to death if convicted.

Identities of the five judges and the prosecutors in the trial have been kept secret to prevent insurgent reprisals. The names of the chief judge and the top prosecutor were the only ones revealed, and only on the day of the trial, when they both appeared extensively in the broadcast. Defense attorneys' names have not been hidden — although the lawyers of Saddam's co-defendants have not been widely publicized.

Saddam had two lawyers at the trial, Khalil al-Dulaimi and Khamis al-Ubaidi.

After the opening session, the trial was suspended until Nov. 28, but the court will interview a key witness Sunday because of his poor health. That first witness will be Wadah Ismail al-Sheik, a bedridden cancer patient who helped run Iraq's feared intelligence agency.

Al-Sheik, director of the investigation department at Saddam's Mukhabarat intelligence agency at the time of the Dujail massacre, will give his testimony in a hospital, court officials said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The United States says the agency is the same one that tried to assassinate former U.S. President George H.W. Bush in Kuwait in 1993.