Wednesday, June 28 2006 10:58 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Former US attorney general Ramsey Clark has said that his client, Saddam Hussein, could not receive a fair trial in Iraq without US protection for defence lawyers, three of whom have been murdered.

"It's impossible to have a fair trial when you don't protect all the participants in the trial protection that only the United States can provide under the circumstances," Clark told a press conference in Washington yesterday.

Clark called for a protection programme that would provide lawyers with body guards and move their families out of Iraq.

The lawyer said that without such protection, the former Iraqi leader would be subjected to 'a show trial, a corruption of justice.'

Along with the deaths of three lawyers, the most recent a week ago, Clark said, "Our witnesses have been intimidated."

Saddam and seven co-defendants are charged with executing148 people in the village of Dujail following an assassination attempt there against Saddam in 1982.

The defendants face execution by hanging if convicted in the trial set to resume on July 10.

Last Wednesday, Khamis al-Obeidi, 49, became the third defence lawyer slain since the start of the trial in October.

Obeidi was abducted by twenty men and later shot dead in a Baghdad street in broad daylight.

Clark said the defence team was unable to present an effective case because lawyers had only minutes to call witnesses who went on the stand without being interviewed by the defence beforehand.