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Monday, June 06, 2005

Top 10 Defenses Planned by Saddam's Lawyers 

We are starting to get a hint at how Saddam's lawyers might try to defend him in court. After telling us that Saddam will only be tried on 12 of the myriad possible charges that could be brought against him, ArabNews gives us his legal team's response:

Issam Ghazawi, a Jordan-based spokesman for Saddam's legal team, criticized Kuba's [Iraqi Spokesman's] comments, saying: "It's illegal to issue charges against the Iraqi president this way."

"The appropriate channel is for the accusations to come through the court and for the lawyers to receive a copy of the indictment," he added.
The rest of the multi-pronged defense strategy slowly comes into focus:
  1. Will demand a change of venue, as he cannot receive a fair trial under occupation. Requests trial take place in a remote cave in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
  2. Demands immediate release in light of torture he has suffered at the hands of his guards: they tried to flush the only copy of his autobiography's first draft down the toilet.
  3. Will charge that courts are biased against former totalitarian leaders, that they hang from lamp posts way out of proportion to the general population. Lawyers will object to any mention of whisper chippers or acid baths.
  4. Plans to explain this whole thing is a crazy mix up, his wife's divorce lawyer's idea of leverage. You know how it is. Really, it's just silly.
  5. He was only trying to impress Jody Foster.
  6. One word: Halliburton. Doesn't it all seem just a little too perfect?
  7. Will roll over on Zarqawi in exchange for plea of manslaughter and 30 years.
  8. Will argue he cannot face trial because of sleep deprivation, tormented nightly by the harrowing memory of all those bombs.
  9. Plans to claim he is not Saddam, will question chain of custody of samples used to identify him.
  10. Failing that, he will claim it was not he, Saddam, who did all these things, but Saddam #7, who is a very, very bad man.

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