Saddam Hussein's lawyer Killed in Iraq
Laiyla Sheerazi 'Pakistan Times' Foreign Correspondent

BAGHDAD (Iraq): A lawyer for ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was found dead on Wednesday after being kidnapped from his Baghdad home, the third member of the defense team to be slain.

Khamis al-Obeidi was snatched from his home in the predominantly Sunni Arab district of Adhamiyha at about 7:00 am (0300 GMT) by men dressed in Iraqi security force uniforms and his body was found a few hours later dumped at a nearby roundabout.

The killing underscored the continuing lawlessness engulfing Baghdad despite a massive security clampdown in the capital launched a week ago involving nearly 60,000 Iraqi and US troops.

"The police found the corpse of Obeidi tossed in a roundabout in the Ur neighborhood," an interior ministry official said, referring to a district of the capital between predominantly Sunni Adhamiyah and the Shiite area of Sadr City.

"I heard from his (Obeidi's) family that a group of men dressed in the uniform of interior ministry security forces took him away at 7:00 am today," Saddam's lead Iraqi lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said.

Obeidi, a 54-year-old Sunni Arab hailing from the powerful Obeidi tribe, is the third defense lawyer for Saddam and his seven co-defendants to be killed since their trial for crimes against humanity over the killing of Shiite villagers opened in October.

A US official close to the court said Obeidi had declined an offer to stay inside the fortress-like Green Zone, seat of the Iraqi government and home to the US diplomatic and military corps, where the trial is taking place.●