They may have been watching too much of our television, perhaps CNN’s channel “All the News You Can Trust”, (the new Voice of America.)
They may have been transfixed, as were we, by the OJ Simpson case, and the Michael Jackson case, and the Robert Blake case, and of course soon they will be watching the Phil Spector case. And any number of Corporate America’s cases of financial wrongdoing.
They need to know that American lawyers make spirited defenses of their clients hoping to get them off, and hoping to pocket huge, never revealed, amounts of bonus cash.
But. The trial of Saddam Hussein needs to proceed in a civilized manner, and the defense lawyers should not be in fear for their lives.
Defense lawyer Saadoun Janabi was merely trying to do his job, which was to defend Judge Awad Hamed Bandar, head of Saddam’s Revolutionary Court, against charges that he unjustly convicted Shiite Muslim residents in the town of Dujayl and then sentenced them to death. (His client Judge Bandar, along with Hussein and six other defendants, face possible death by hanging sentences in a 1982 massacre in Dujayl.)
But to kidnap Saaduun, tie him up, and shoot him, was going a bit far.
OK, so our revered and time-honored William Shakespeare did actually say, famously, “Let’s kill all the lawyers”. But I think he was just kidding!
I think he was kidding! I think he was kidding!
I think he was kidding. I think . . .