World leaders should take stand in Saddam trial: lawyer
December 20, 2003
French lawyer Jacques Verges is willing to defend Saddam Hussein.
Controversial French lawyer Jacques Verges says he is willing to defend Saddam Hussein in court and, if he can, bring world leaders to the witness stand, in what could be a huge embarrassment for the United States, France and other countries.
Verges spoke to AFP yesterday at the end of a visit to Amman to visit the family of former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz to prepare for his defence following his surrender to US troops after the fall of Baghdad.
Asked if he was also ready to defend the former Iraqi leader, who was captured last Saturday night by US troops in northern Iraq, Verges said: "If other people seek my counsel I would have no reason to refuse".
But he insisted that "all Western heads of state", from the time of the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war to the latest Iraq conflict, should take the stand when the imprisoned former Iraqi officials go on trial.
"At the Nuremberg trial, the four allies accused the Nazi leaders of certain war crimes and crimes against humanity," Verges said, in reference to the trials of leading Nazi party officials after the defeat of Germany in World War II.
"Right now the former Iraqi regime is being blamed for certain events that took place at a time when its members were treated as allies or friends by countries that had embassies in Baghdad and ambassadors not all of whom were blind (to Iraqi crimes)," he said.
"Today, this indignation appears to me contrived," he added.
"When we reprove the use of certain weapons (we need to know) who sold these weapons," he said about Iraq's past purchase of arms from France, Britain, the United States and Russia.
"When we disapprove of the war against Iran (we need to know) who encouraged it," Verges added.
The United States maintained ties with the Saddam regime in the 1980s and tacitly approved the war on its nemesis, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in Tehran.
Verges also slammed the UN embargo that was slapped on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990 and criticised the US administration's backing of the sanctions, which he said caused the death of an estimated half-a-million people.
"Mrs (Madeleine) Albright once said that this is the price to pay for democracy," he said of the secretary of state under former US president Bill Clinton.
"If that is the case then it should be said as well and only then will a trial be fair. Otherwise it will be an execution of hostages," he said of the former Iraqi leaders now held at secret locations by the US-led coalition.
A quintessential devil's advocate who has made a career of arguing what most choose not to hear, Verges, 79, has half a century of experience defending unpopular causes.
His clients included the likes of Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie and convicted terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, alias Carlos.
More recently he became vice president of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic and represented the former Yugoslav leader in a suit before the European Court of Human Rights.
Tareq Aziz's family, which has found sanctuary in Jordan, has sought his help to defend the former Iraqi official, who suffers of heart trouble and diabetes.
"The first course of action I will take is to find out about his health because he is sick and has heart troubles," Verges told AFP, adding that he has a "lot of respect" for the veteran Iraqi diplomat.
Verges is also demanding that the coalition in Iraq release a "written and precise document" listing the charges they have against Aziz and all the other prisoners.
"My course of action ... must benefit all the prisoners because when we solve the status of Mr Aziz we solve the status of the others," Verges said.
AFP
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