Saddam’s relative has no role in IS killings in Iraq

Lawyer Al-Khalil, who defended Saddam during his trial in Baghdad before he was hanged in December 2006, said Abdullah left Iraq in 2003 at the age of eight following the U.S.-led invasion and moved to Yemen where he was given Yemeni citizenship after his family was stripped off its Iraqi nationality. She added that the first time Abdullah left Yemen was in late September 2014, three months after the killings, moving to Jordan.

She said the young man moved to Lebanon in 2019 and asked for political asylum hoping to get resettled in Britain to marry an Iraqi woman. Al-Khalil said Abdullah was detained several months ago and was questioned by authorities who found no proof against him being a criminal.

Al-Khalil said that she had given Lebanese authorities all the documents proving that Abdullah had not left Yemen until September 2014 where he was a university student at the time.

“The handover was part of a deal” between Lebanese and Iraqi officials, al-Khalil said adding that since Abdullah is a Yemeni citizen he was not supposed to be handed over to Iraq.

Al-Khalil said she studied Abdullah’s case and found that what was used as evidence against him were claims by two people who said they saw him in videos released by IS militants taking part in the killings.

“My conscience would not allow me to defend a person who took part in a massacre,” al-Khalil said, adding that had he been a criminal she would have refused to defend him.

Iraq’s new Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani issued a statement Saturday praising Iraq’s police for repatriating Abdullah “and bringing him before the justice of the Iraqi judiciary to get his just punishment.” It added that Abdullah “was indicted for his participation in the murder of our innocent martyrs from the Speicher base in 2014.”

Al-Khalil said she last saw Abdullah in late October at a detention center and quoted him as telling her “I am ready to do anything but I don’t want to be handed over” to Iraq. She said that the handover took place during the political vacuum in the country with no president elected and a government with no full powers running affairs in Lebanon.

Asked is she fears he could be executed in Iraq, al-Khalil said “of course.”

Iraqi forces arrested scores of men allegedly linked to the massacre after retaking Tikrit in 2015. Since then dozens of men were condemned to death and executed.