Saddam urges Iraqis to unite against US

Ziad Khassawneh (L), spokesman for the legal defence team of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, and Lebanese lawyer Bushra al-Khalil speak to reporters in Amman after Saddam met with a member of his Jordanian-based legal team for the first time Sunday in Amman. The former Iraqi leader has urged the Iraqi people from his prison cell to be united and cautioned them to be wary of the elections slated for January 30, his lawyers said. PHOTO: AFP

Ziad Khasawneh, a Jordanian lawyer and spokesman for Saddam's defence team, told reporters: "President Saddam Hussein urged the unity of his Iraqi people, regardless of their religious and ethnic creed, to confront US plans to divide their country on sectarian grounds."

Saddam relayed his messages through Khalil Dulaimi, an Iraqi lawyer and member of the defence counsel who met the ousted leader for more than four hours on Thursday -- Saddam's first access to lawyers since he was arrested a year ago.

Dulaimi's identity was until Sunday kept secret by Saddam's Amman-based legal team for fears over his life after he escaped an assassination attempt two weeks ago, defence lawyers said.

Saddam, who is denied access to news, was eager to know what had happened in Iraq since his captivity, Khasawneh said.

Saddam said Iraqis had to be cautious after Dulaimi told him US-backed elections would take place next month, said Lebanese lawyer Bushra al-Khalil, who is on the defence team.

But the former strongman was as defiant as ever and high-spirited in captivity, his lawyers said.

"If my commitment to my principles was 90 percent before the US invasion then after what happened to me it's 100 percent firm," Khasawneh quoted Saddam as saying.

Saddam sent a plea to Iraq's men of religion from all persuasions to "shoulder a historic responsibility" in rallying people in Iraq's difficult times, the lawyers said.

War crimes trials against Saddam Hussein and his closest lieutenants moved forward when his feared cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid and a former defence minister were questioned by an investigating judge on Saturday.

Meanwhile, four men, three of them believed to be foreigners, were killed in a roadside ambush north of Baghdad yesterday, an Iraqi police officer told AFP.

Elsewhere, three Iraqis, including a woman, were killed in a string of attacks, police said.

Four men driving in a sports utility vehicle, which are often used by foreign contractors, were hit by a roadside bomb and then gunfire in Ashaki, south of the Sunni hotspot of Samarra, said Lieutenant Colonel Hamid Mohamed.