BAGHDAD: High-profile American lawyer Ramsey Clark came to the aid of Saddam Hussein, formally joining his team of attorneys. But while the former US attorney-general may have found the ultimate platform for his vehement opposition to the Iraq war, legal experts were divided over whether his participation would hurt or help the deposed dictator’s case.

The 77-year-old Clark has long been a champion of controversial causes and has had a roster of clients, including former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. Clark, who met Saddam briefly before the 2003 US invasion, has for months played an advisory role in the ousted dictator’s defence on murder charges.

Based on the Dallas native’s past performances in high-profile trials, legal observers say he’ll almost certainly avoid addressing the specific allegations against Saddam and instead will try to turn the proceedings into a forum for airing his grievances against US foreign policy.

In a Jan. 24 opinion piece he wrote for the Los Angeles Times, Clark said he was willing to take up Saddam’s cause because the court trying him ‘was illegitimate in its conception — the creation of an illegal occupying power that demonized Saddam Hussein and destroyed the government it now intends to condemn by law’.

But in Baghdad on Monday, Clark limited his criticism of the trial to less lofty matters. In a written statement, he urged the Iraqi High Tribunal trying Saddam and his co-defendants to bolster protection for defence attorneys, two of whom have already been shot dead. When a fellow attorney tried to read the statement, a judge cut him off.

Officials of Iraq’s government, made up mostly of Saddam’s longtime enemies, reacted with anger to Clark’s presence.

Some legal experts say Clark’s gambit may jeopardize Saddam’s defence. Michael Scharf, a Case Western University legal scholar who trained lawyers for the trial and runs a blog devoted to the trial, said that for Clark, the question of Saddam’s guilt or innocence is moot.

“He doesn’t believe Saddam Hussein didn’t commit crimes,” said Scharf. “But he’s so angry that the US started the war without UN Security Council authorization that he wants to turn the trial a bully pulpit in which to indict the Bush administration’s foreign policy.”—Dawn/Los Angeles Times News Service