Saddam goes on hunger strike

Baghdad: Saddam Hussein and his seven co-defendants went on a hunger strike on Wednesday to protest the death of an attorney on the ousted Iraqi leader's defense team.

Saddam’s Chief lawyer said this is the third such killing in the 8-month-old trial, since it began on October 19 2005.

Lawyer Khamis al-Obeidi, a Sunni Arab who represented Saddam and his half brother Barzan Ibrahim, was abducted from his home on Wednesday morning.

His body was found riddled with bullets on a street near the Shiite slum of Sadr City. Police provided a photo of al-Obeidi's face, head and shoulders drenched in blood.

Saddam's chief attorney, Khalil al-Dulaimi, blamed the killing on 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.

There was no comment from the ministry.

Bushra al-Khalil, a Lebanese member of the defense team, said al-Obeidi was taken from his house by men dressed in police uniforms and driving four-wheelers used by Iraqi security forces.

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However, al-Obeidi's wife, Um Laith, said the attackers wore civilian clothes. She added 20 men burst into their house while the couple and their children were sleeping, and identified themselves as members of an Interior Ministry security brigade.

Iraqi witnesses said al-Obeidi was transported in a convoy by people known as belonging to the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army.

Al-Obeidi colleagues said the brutal slaying was an attempt to intimidate the defense before it begins final arguments July 10, a process that will take about 10 days.

"We consider his killing a message to us in the defense - 'To continue what you are doing will result in death in broad daylight on the streets of Baghdad.' It is a message that is written in blood," an Egyptian lawyer retained by Saddam, Mohammed Moneib, said,

Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi said the trial would continue.

"We will defy terrorism," al-Moussawi said.

"We will continue with the trial and will not be deterred," he added.

The prosecution has demanded the death penalty for Saddam in the killing of 148 Shiites during a crackdown against the town of Dujail in the 1980s.