Ramsey Clark to defend Saddam
Former attorney general says Hussein victim of 'selective prosecution'
Posted: December 30, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney general and leftist anti-war activist,
announced yesterday he has joined the defense team of former Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein.
Clark made the announcement in Amman, Jordan, and took the opportunity to slam
the Bush administration, saying the U.S. should be tried for alleged "war
crimes" in Fallujah, Iraq.
According to a report by Agence France-Presse, fellow Saddam lawyer Ziad
Khasawna said Clark's presence on the ex-dictator's legal team "honored and
inspired" the other attorneys.
Clark arrived Tuesday in Amman, where Saddam's legal team is based. Besides
meeting with other lawyers, Clark met with Saddam's two daughters who live in
Jordan.
The attorney general during the Johnson administration, Clark visited Hussein
in Baghdad in February 2003 just before the U.S.-led invasion. He first met the
dictator prior to the first Gulf War. The news service reports Clark has also
been involved with the defense of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, on
trial for war crimes in The Hague.
Clark decried the fact Saddam saw a lawyer for the first time one year after
his capture.
"In international law, anyone accused of crime has the right to be tried by a
confident, independent and impartial court, and there can be no fair trail
without those qualities," he told reporters.
"The special court in Iraq was created by the Iraqi governing council, which is
nothing more than a creation of the U.S. military occupation and has no
authority in law as a criminal court."
Referring to the former despot as "President Saddam Hussein," Clark says it's
the U.S. that should go on trial, pointing to last month's siege of Falluja,
destruction of houses, alleged torture in prisons and the military's role in
the deaths of thousands of Iraqis.
A Baghdad court ruled in July that Saddam faced seven preliminary charges, with
more precise charges to follow.
"It's selective prosecution and it's the worst form," Clark said. "You pick
your enemies and you prejudge the case and you go through the formalities and
you convict them."
Clark called the U.S. "an arrogant power that is not dealing with rights."
Reuters quotes Clark as saying Saddam's defense could take years to prepare
with many witnesses who would have to testify, among them world leaders and
politicians.
"Assuming Saddam Hussein is going to be tried you have to prepare the defense
and that's an enormous task maybe two years of prosecution evidence and
hundreds of witnesses," he said.
The Iraqi government has announced it will begin trying several of Hussein's
henchmen soon with proceedings likely to begin before the Jan. 30 elections.
Clark, who runs the International Action Center, a front group for the
communist Workers World Party, is a longtime critic of Bush foreign policy,
referring to the president's actions as "criminal offenses, they are high
crimes, they are indictable offenses, and they are impeachable offenses."
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| User: "TaDa Pope" |
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| Title: Re: Ramsey Clark to defend Saddam |
30 Dec 2004 05:31:45 PM |
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Well, you gotta have SOME left to balance the right.
Tangents are infinite in all of nature in
all universes constantly and at random.
* D OUOSVAVV M *
*PUBLIUS ENIGMA*
Oh Joy!
Tom
The Psychedelic Pope
Patron Saint of the Internet
http://www.apple2.org.za/gswv/me/
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| User: "TonyZ2001" |
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| Title: Re: Ramsey Clark to defend Saddam |
31 Dec 2004 07:32:35 AM |
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adapope@aol.comWOMP
wrote:
Well, you gotta have SOME left to >balance the right.
Come on Pope, this guy is so far left he's falling off the edge.
Tony
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