18 December 2006: Roma - Washington DC - Baghdad - Giovanni Di Stefano, a member of the defence team for Saddam Hussein, announced on his return from Jordan meeting with the Defence Team that in order to fully protect Saddam Hussein in the ongoing Anfal Trial in Baghdad would ask the Court and the United States of America to agree to an 'amicus' brief being appointed from a list of lawyers advanced by the International Bar Association, and Amnesty International.
"In the Milosevic trial in order to be sure that President Milosevic was on the face of it protected the Court appointed two amicus briefs who actually turned out to be effective and useful," said Di Stefano. "President Hussein effectively has no lawyers of his choosing and those currently present appointed by the Court are not deemed effective," stated Di Stefano. "The UK, Italy and the US all have the possibilities within their domestic law recently legislated for the Courts appointing Special Counsel to ensure the rights of the defendant is fully protected and this case has been crying out for an amicus brief. There is no reason why our application will not be supported by the Former Occupying powers that all have legislation in their domestic law providing for such and at least it would be fair."
A second application by the Saddam Hussein Defence Team includes seeking Judicial Co-operation from a number of Countries to inspect documents kept by them in their trade with Iraq between 1983 and 1999 probative to the current Anfal Trial that is ongoing. "Judicial Co-operation is not restricted solely for the Prosecution," said Di Stefano. "We are specifically interested in inspecting documents kept by the FBI in their storage units leased in Qatar. The storage units contain all the documents seized when the US attacked Iraq from a number of Ministries. Information provided to me say there are nearly 200 million documents. The Prosecution in the Anfal Trial have only served us with approximately 10,000 documents. That is not even what one would expect from an armed robbery trial let alone genocide. In one trial Milosevic was served with over 4 million documents. We believe the FBI Storage Centre in Qatar contain ex-culpatory documents. We will serve upon the Government of Qatar an letter of request for Judicial Co-operation as we will also to Italy, France, Germany, UK, Netherlands all who enjoyed trading facilities with Iraq in the pertinent years financed by the US. We must be allowed to see the documents and further why did the FBI lease storage units in 2002 in Qatar? It’s an interesting question," said Di Stefano.
Meanwhile in the District Court of Columbia (Washington DC) HH Judge Emmet Sullivan received on the 18/12/2006 the formal motion requesting a stay of execution of Saddam Hussein for at least 'twelve weeks or until further order'. A ruling is expected shortly.
The Motion to the US District Court of Washington DC is available in English, Arabic and Italian from the Press Office slipress@yahoo.it, tel. +39 3393188116, http:/www.studiolegaleinternazionale.com
Download (Word format): Preliminary Motion, Preliminary Motion (Italian).
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