A defence lawyer for one of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants was shot dead after being abducted, police said yesterday, in a grim new twist to a case meant to turn the page on Iraq's bloody past.
Saadoun Janabi was kidnapped from his small Baghdad office late on Thursday, witnesses said. Police said yesterday his body was later found shot execution-style in the chest and head.
Iraq's government condemned the murder, which some human rights groups said could have a "chilling effect" on Saddam's defence team and dim hopes for a fair trial.
Janabi was attorney for Awad al-Bander, a former judge who appeared with Saddam and six other co-accused in court on Wednesday at the start of their trial on charges stemming from the killings and executions of more than 140 men in the 1980s.
Bander is accused of overseeing the trials of dozens of men from the Shi'ite town of Dujail north of Baghdad who were sentenced to death in the wake of a failed assassination attempt against Saddam in July 1982.
The Dujail case is the first against Saddam, who is also expected to face charges of war crimes and genocide for a series of offences during his brutal three-decade rule over Iraq.
The assassination of Janabi, who lawyers said had been an old friend of the former dictator, came as Saddam's formerly dominant Sunni Arab minority wages a bloody insurgency against the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government and its US backers.
Both Baghdad and Washington hope the trial, which began just days after a referendum on a new Constitution, will prove a unifying force and draw a line under Saddam's dictatorship.
But some human rights groups fear it may be simple "victor's justice" that could further exacerbate the sectarian tensions that have already pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war. Iraq's Electoral Commission said yesterday final results from the October 15 constitutional referendum would not be released for another day or two. They had been expected yesterday.
The Constitution, which Washington hopes will stabilise Iraq as a democratic ally and allow it to begin withdrawing its 150,000 troops, is believed to have passed despite opposition from many Sunni Arabs who say it seals their political eclipse.
The US military announced yesterday that three Marines and a soldier had been killed, bringing the total number of US servicemen and women who have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to at least 1,992. Some moderate Sunni leaders told visiting Arab League chief Amr Moussa yesterday they would attend a reconciliation conference in Cairo on November 15 which is also expected to draw Arab foreign ministers worried over the regional implications of Iraq's unending violence.
But other groups set conditions for participation, including the withdrawal of US troops, and hardcore insurgents seemed unlikely to be pulled to the negotiating table. Iraq's government vowed yesterday that Saddam's trial would not be halted by the killing of Janabi.
"The investigation of this crime is under way. Terrorists have targeted officials within the government before and the Iraqi government much like before is committed to its war against terror," chief government spokesman Laith Kubba said in a statement.