Gaddafi’s daughter on Saddam’s team

Deposed dictator Saddam Hussein’s first court appearance on Thursday, to hear charges of crimes against humanity, continued to reverberate across the country and region as his legal team said it had been joined by a daughter of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.

“Dr Aisha Kadhafi is henceforth part of our team as she requested. I have sent her a letter confirming her retention as part of the team,” lawyer Mohammed al-Rashdan told AFP in Amman.Rashdan said the team, which has so far been denied entry into Iraq, let alone access to its client, had renewed its request with both Iraqi legal and US military authorities.A group of Kuwaiti lawyers said they had formed a committee to “represent the Kuwaiti people” at Saddam’s trial.Meanwhile, a militant group considered close to al-Qaeda claimed yesterday to have decapitated a US marine corporal taken hostage, as six Iraqi national guardsmen, a US soldier and an Iraqi policeman were killed in sporadic violence.Security and medical sources said the six Iraqi national guardsmen were killed and four others wounded as they guarded a pipeline south of Baghdad on one of the bloodiest days since the interim government took over.”Five dead bodies were brought in here, comprising one lieutenant and four soldiers, as well as five wounded people, three of whom were seriously hurt,” said Haydar Sabah, a doctor at a hospital in Mahmudiyah, 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of Baghdad.In a message posted on the Internet, Ansar al-Sunna, a group with ties to Al-Qaeda, said it had decapitated US Marine Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun.”You will soon see the video,” said the message.Hassoun, a Lebanese American, went missing June 21 near the town of Fallujah, a focus of resistance to the US-led forces in Iraq.Last Sunday, satellite news channel Al-Jazeera broadcast a tape from a group threatening to kill Hassoun unless all detainees in US-led coalition prisons in Iraq were freed.- Nampa-AFPI have sent her a letter confirming her retention as part of the team,” lawyer Mohammed al-Rashdan told AFP in Amman.Rashdan said the team, which has so far been denied entry into Iraq, let alone access to its client, had renewed its request with both Iraqi legal and US military authorities.A group of Kuwaiti lawyers said they had formed a committee to “represent the Kuwaiti people” at Saddam’s trial.Meanwhile, a militant group considered close to al-Qaeda claimed yesterday to have decapitated a US marine corporal taken hostage, as six Iraqi national guardsmen, a US soldier and an Iraqi policeman were killed in sporadic violence.Security and medical sources said the six Iraqi national guardsmen were killed and four others wounded as they guarded a pipeline south of Baghdad on one of the bloodiest days since the interim government took over.”Five dead bodies were brought in here, comprising one lieutenant and four soldiers, as well as five wounded people, three of whom were seriously hurt,” said Haydar Sabah, a doctor at a hospital in Mahmudiyah, 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of Baghdad.In a message posted on the Internet, Ansar al-Sunna, a group with ties to Al-Qaeda, said it had decapitated US Marine Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun.”You will soon see the video,” said the message.Hassoun, a Lebanese American, went missing June 21 near the town of Fallujah, a focus of resistance to the US-led forces in Iraq.Last Sunday, satellite news channel Al-Jazeera broadcast a tape from a group threatening to kill Hassoun unless all detainees in US-led coalition prisons in Iraq were freed.- Nampa-AFP