February 10, 2006

The United States offered to let Saddam Hussein live in exile like Napoleon on St Helena if he would use his influence to end the Iraqi insurgency, a lawyer for the deposed leader said.

Lawyer Saleh al-Armouti said that when he met Saddam in prison in Baghdad last month, Saddam had said the Americans had offered to treat him "like Napoleon," whom the British imprisoned on St Helena island in the Atlantic ocean in the 19th Century, "if he called on the resistance to end its activities".

Armouti reported Saddam as saying the Americans had told him that if he turned down the offer, there was an alternative.

"The other offer was for him to be treated like Mussolini," Armouti said, referring to the Italian dictator who was shot and strung from a lamp post by partisans in the last days of World War II.

A US military spokesman in Baghdad, LTC Barry Johnson, dismissed the lawyer's report.

"This claim is completely unfounded and, frankly, rather ridiculous," Johnson said.

"This appears to be some vain attempt by a lawyer to make it look as if Saddam still has some power or authority over people, which he doesn't.

"All he has is lawyers," Johnson added.

Armouti, the head of the Jordanian Bar Association, joined Saddam's defence team in December, but was ordered out of court on January 29 after arguing with the judge. Subsequently, the other defence counsel left the court and, after another argument, the judge ordered Saddam to leave.

Al-Armouti said today that the lawyers will not attend the next hearing, which is set for Monday, unless the chief judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman, is replaced. The defence counsel boycotted the past two hearings, demanding Abdel-Rahman's dismissal.

"I call for his dismissal because he is completely biased," Armouti said.

"He should be referred to court, to a disciplinary council and tried."

Abdel-Rahman has appointed new defence lawyers and continued with the trial. Last week, he told the court he had received no motion demanding his removal and did not address the charges of bias.

Armouti said Saddam spends his time in US military detention reading the Koran, the Islamic holy book, writing poetry, novels and his memoirs.

AP