French lawyer says he gets nod to defend Hussein
By Reuters, 3/28/2004
PARIS -- A French lawyer known for defending Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and guerrilla Carlos the Jackal said yesterday that Saddam Hussein's nephew had chosen him to represent the deposed Iraqi president.
Jacques Verges said in a telephone interview he had received a letter from Ali Barzan al-Tikriti, whose father Barzan al-Tikriti is Hussein's half-brother, asking him to defend the former Iraqi dictator, captured by US forces in December.
The US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad is setting up a war crimes tribunal to try Hussein on charges that may include genocide and crimes against humanity.
Washington has said the 66-year-old Hussein, whose interrogation is being led by the CIA, should be tried in Iraq.
Verges, who is also defending former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, said he had accepted the job of defending Hussein and suggested his strategy would focus on the role played by the United States and other countries in supporting the Iraqi leader in the 1980s.
"We know very well that the Anglo-Americans armed Saddam Hussein, that the chemical weapons were sold by the allies," Verges said.
Washington helped Hussein obtain intelligence and military equipment and, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document in the US Senate record, Iraq also obtained from the United States biological agents that could have been turned into weapons. The United States was at the time supporting Iraq in its war against the US foe Iran, at a time when Hussein used chemical weapons against Iranian forces and Iraqi Kurds.
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and the former Soviet Union also supplied Iraq with equipment, expertise, and funding over the years.
The West's close military and commercial relationship with Hussein ended when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.
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