( L - R ) AMIN AND HUSSEIN
BAGHDAD, (Reuters):
THE JUDGE trying Saddam Hussein refused to withdraw his resignation yesterday and the court named a stand-in to preside over next week's hearings while efforts continue to persuade Judge Rizgar Amin to return.
Amin's complaints of government interference have rocked the U.S.-sponsored court, whose ability to stage a fair trial amid sectarian and ethnic conflict had already been thrown into doubt by the killings of two defence lawyers and talk of intimidation.
"We sent a delegation from the court to convince him but it was not successful," the chief prosecutor in the trial, Jaafar al-Moussawi, told Reuters after a mission led by another senior judge to Amin's Kurdish home city of Sulaimaniya.
"He is standing by his resignation. He will not come to Baghdad and he will not preside over the next session."
