Lawyer says she was singled out
Bushra al-Khalil, the lawyer thrown out of Saddam Hussein’s trial on Monday, said she thinks the chief judge is targeting her because she’s a Shia Muslim defending the former Iraqi leader.
For the Lebanese-born al-Khalil, Saddam is a nationalist hero resisting the US invasion of his country, although he’s charged with crimes against humanity in a crackdown that killed 148 Shia.
She’s had a rough time in court.
Chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman has been tough on all the defense, throwing out several lawyers and defendants in an attempt to bring order to the often raucous trial.
But he has been more curt with al-Khalil. On April 5, he had her tossed out after she tried to raise an objection. She had hardly started to speak when he told her to sit down, then when she tried to continue ordered her to go.
On Monday, she was back in court for the first time, and Abdel-Rahman started the session with a warning that he would not allow disruptions from her. When she tried to comment, he ordered guards to remove her. Shouting at guards not to grab her, al-Khalil threw off her black judicial robes and was escorted out.
“Some people say he has a complex about women,” she told The Associated Press later, without elaborating.
It wouldn’t be the first time her gender has come up in court. After she was removed in April, one of her fellow defense lawyers stood and asked the judge to allow her back. “She’s a woman, and women are known to be more emotional. You should show understanding,” he said.
Wealthy family
But al-Khalil said she thinks the judge is picking her out for harsher treatment because she’s a Shia who dared to defend one of the most hated figures among Iraqi Shia.
“There is a decision to distance me because I come from a well-known Shiite family,” she said.
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Al-Khalil says she sides with |
Al-Khalil is a member of a wealthy southern Lebanese family from the village of Jwaya. Her maternal grand father, Youssef al-Faqih, led the country’s Shias until the 1950s, and an uncle was a grand ayatollah, the highest rank a Shia cleric can reach.
But for al-Khalil, Arab nationalism outweighs sectarian ties.
“Saddam Hussein is not a sectarian person and it can’t be true that he targeted Shiites for being Shiites,” she said. “The Dujail case was not against Shiites but against people who tried to assassinate the president.”
She said she decided to join Saddam’s defense the moment she saw him on television being checked by American military doctors after his arrest in December 2003. She contacted the Jordan-based defense team and volunteered her services.
Al-Khalil, who refused to give her age but has been practicing law for 26 years, said her defense of Saddam is a national duty of an Arab opposed to what she calls America’s attempts to control the Mideast.
“I cannot be neutral when I have to chose between [US President George] Bush and Saddam. I am for sure with Saddam,” she said.