[Marxism] An exemplary Shiite

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, June 24, 2006
For a Shiite, Defending Hussein Is a Labor of Love
By HASSAN M. FATTAH

BEIRUT, Lebanon

BY all rights, she should be seeking Saddam Hussein's head. But Bushra 
Khalil, a swaggering lawyer from Beirut's predominantly Shiite south, is 
one of Mr. Hussein's most strident defenders.

Ms. Khalil, the daughter of a prominent Lebanese Shiite family, is one of a 
team of lawyers representing Mr. Hussein in the Iraqi tribunal prosecuting 
him and others for crimes against humanity in cases that include the 
execution of 148 Shiites at the hands of Mr. Hussein's Sunni Arab henchmen.

The seeming contradiction has not been lost on many neighbors and friends, 
who cannot believe Ms. Khalil is defending a man accused of ordering the 
killing not only of the 148 for which he is currently on trial, but also of 
tens of thousands of Iraqi Shiites during the 34 years of his rule, 
including possibly some of her relatives.

But the move is emblematic of her style: heated, confrontational and eager 
for the spotlight. For Ms. Khalil, defending Mr. Hussein is part of 
resisting what she sees as American aggression, in a defense focused as 
much on politics as on law.

"The occupation is of Iraq but the aggression is against the entire Arab 
people," she says. "If you look really deeply at the evidence, Saddam in 
fact is not really guilty."

Her clients are accused of killing residents of a Shiite town, Dujail, on 
the northern fringe of Baghdad, after what Mr. Hussein and his associates 
call a failed assassination attempt against him there. She hopes that being 
Shiite herself will hamper the prosecution's case.

"They are trying to make the issue of Dujail a Sunni versus Shia issue," 
she explained. "But when someone like me, with my family history, defends 
Saddam, it calls their whole assumption into question."

MS. KHALIL boasts that she was among the first to join Mr. Hussein's legal 
team, which she did days after he was captured in 2003. In the years since, 
she has represented him in public and in private, seeking to discredit the 
legitimacy of the tribunal and waging a heated battle in the court of Arab 
public opinion. She gets no money for her time, she says, though Mr. 
Hussein's family in Amman covers some of her expenses. She calls the case a 
labor of love.

She says she had a standard speech back when she took up his defense: "This 
man was a real leader. He launched the resistance, and refused to acquiesce."

She adds now, "In 2003, that was tough talk, but no one knew then that the 
Iraqi resistance would get so strong."

When she finally got the chance to speak in court in April, it did not take 
Ms. Khalil long to butt heads with the chief judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman. 
When the prosecution played a video of Mr. Hussein ordering the arrest of 
townspeople after the alleged assassination attempt, Ms. Khalil held up 
pictures of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.

In a loud voice, she turned to Mr. Hussein and said, "Look what they are 
doing to your country." The judge promptly held her in contempt of court 
and ejected her.

In May, she landed in the spotlight again when Judge Abdel-Rahman cited her 
for speaking out of turn, ordering guards to forcibly eject her from court. 
Ms. Khalil pulled off her judicial robe and threw it on the floor, pushing 
guards who were grabbing at her hands. She has been banned from the court 
ever since.

"Part of what we do will provoke the judge," she admitted coyly. "But his 
job is not to get provoked."

Friends and family fear for Ms. Khalil's safety as she continues defending 
Mr. Hussein. On Wednesday, one of Mr. Hussein's senior attorneys, Khamis 
al-Obeidi, was kidnapped from his home and killed, apparently by a Shiite 
militia. He was the third of Mr. Hussein's attorneys to be killed since the 
trial began in October.

"I am not afraid," Ms. Khalil said. "I know there are threats but I will 
not be afraid of them."

THE walls of Ms. Khalil's suburban Beirut apartment tell of some of the 
permutations of her life. Glamorous photographs, enlarged to poster size, 
provide a reminder of her go-go days as a Beirut socialite in the 1980's. 
Campaign posters, relics of several unsuccessful runs for a seat in 
Lebanon's Parliament, show her in a more mature phase ? but still swaggering.

Then there is the stark juxtaposition of a photograph of her grandfather, 
the most senior Shiite judge in Lebanon in his day, sitting with several 
other prominent Shiites, and a framed medallion given to her by a Baathist 
Iraqi women's group.

Ms. Khalil has longstanding ties to Iraq, and made numerous trips to 
Baghdad in the 1990's, during which she curried favor with senior 
government figures and received awards from Baathist organizations. She has 
been accused in the Arab news media of receiving money from Mr. Hussein and 
of having had a close relationship with his son Uday, who was killed by 
United States forces in July 2003. She says she met him only a few times 
and in public.

Defending Mr. Hussein, though, was the last thing anyone in Juwaya, her 
home village in southern Lebanon, would have expected, friends say.

Ms. Khalil is related to some well-known Iraqi Shiite leaders, some of whom 
were regular guests in the family home when she grew up. Her family still 
grieves for distant relatives felled by Saddam Hussein.

She says she wrote a letter to the Hezbollah leader, Sheik Hassan 
Nasrallah, and other Shiite leaders in Lebanon, arguing the merits of her 
work. The main reason to defend Saddam, she insisted, is because America is 
prosecuting him.

"If Imam Ali were alive today, would he have remained neutral?" she says 
she wrote, referring to the cousin and son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad, 
a central figure for Shiites. "If not, where would he have stood? With Bush 
or with Saddam Hussein?"

Hezbollah officials who were asked about the letter said they had no 
recollection of it.

Members of her family contacted for this article refused comment, insisting 
the issue was a private matter. But some residents of Juwaya said she was 
no longer welcome there.

"Her decision to join his defense team upset a lot of people here," said a 
local shop owner who knows her family and gave his name as only Abu Qassem. 
"She is not welcome here and she knows that. All the Khalil family hates 
her now and she is aware of this fact."

Others dismiss her campaign as a play for the spotlight.

"She went all the way to Iraq in search of fame and attention, not Saddam 
or the Arab cause," said Abbas Klait, 57, a Juwaya shop owner who said he 
was a classmate of her sister. "That has left her on bad terms with the 
townspeople and she rarely comes here anymore."

Nada Bakri contributed reporting for this article.


________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism