BAGHDAD, June 21: One of Saddam Hussein’s main lawyers was shot dead on Wednesday after men in police uniform took him from his home, relatives said, the third defence attorney to be killed since the trial opened in October.

Gunmen also abducted at least 80 Iraqi factory workers travelling home in a fleet of buses just north of Baghdad, police and Interior Ministry sources said.

The killing of lawyer Khamis al-Obaidi was a new setback for the US-backed court. It fuelled complaints sectarian violence is crippling a fair trial. Sunnis accuse Shia militias within the police of running death squads.

The lead defence lawyer called for the case to be suspended and the defendants taken abroad after the death of his deputy.

Mr Obaidi’s wife told another defence lawyer that men in police uniform took the lawyer from his Baghdad home around 7am.

“They said ‘We’re from internal security and we need you for questioning’,” Qatari attorney Najeeb al-Nuaimi told Al Jazeera television. Two hours later, Mr Obaidi’s body was dumped on a road beside a poster honouring Musa Sadr, a Shia leader killed under Saddam.

The attack appeared very similar to the killing of another lawyer the day after the televised trial began in October.

Saddam Hussein and seven Baath party allies are being tried for crimes against humanity over the deaths of Shia villagers.

A police officer said Mr Obaidi had been shot eight times and there were signs of torture, both his arms were broken.

Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi said the killing would ‘not affect or delay the trial and we will defy terrorism’.

It came two days after Mr Moussawi demanded the death penalty for Saddam and three of his senior Baath party allies.

Shop owners said three gunmen dumped the body of Mr Obaidi at a roundabout under a poster of Musa Sadr, a senior Shia leader killed by Saddam’s agents in 1999. Musa Sadr is the father of Moqtada al Sadr, leader of the Mehdi Army militia.

“They fired into the air and said ‘This is the fate of Baathists!’,” said a vegetable seller whose store is close by.

The area is not far from the Sadr City slum, a stronghold of Sadr’s militia. The body of Saadoun Janabi, the first lawyer to be killed, was also dumped nearby. Neighbours said then that he was seized by men saying they were from the interior ministry.—Reuters