Wounded Saddam defence lawyer flees Iraq

A defence lawyer in the Saddam Hussein case who was wounded in a fatal ambush today said he had fled the country and was appealing to the ruler of the Gulf state of Qatar to grant him asylum.

The move is another blow to the troubled case.

Thamir al-Khuzaie was injured in the 8 November ambush in western Baghdad in which another defence lawyer, Adel al-Zubeidi, was killed.

Al-Zubeidi was the second defence lawyer involved in the case to be assassinated since the trial opened on October 19.

"I was only a lawyer who practiced his profession in Iraq. Yet I was subjected to an assassination attempt and to danger that might have even touched my family," al-Khuzaie said. "So I decided to leave the country."

He said that he had written to the ruler of Qatar asking for "humanitarian asylum" for him and his family.

Al-Khuzaie represented two of Saddam's seven co-defendants in the trial, which resumes on 28 November.