Saddam in good spirits on eve of birthday

Saddam Hussein met his lawyer for the first time in four months on Wednesday, on the eve of his 68th birthday, the head of the defence team for the former Iraqi president said.

"The president is in good health and good spirits in his illegal captivity," Ziad Khasawneh told Reuters.

Khasawneh said Saddam met for six hours with Khalil al-Duleimi, an Iraqi member of the Jordanian-based defence team hired by his family to defend him against charges including killing thousands of Iraqis.

"Duleimi is on his way back to Amman and we will know more details," said Khasawneh, adding Saddam had not had contact with his lawyers since Duleimi saw him at the end of last year.

"The president will play a major role in setting his defence strategy. We have submitted numerous requests to the tribunal through the Iraqi Bar Association to see him over the past months but they only answered us now," he added.

Saddam has been behind bars since he was captured by US forces in December 2003. He is held in a US prison on the edge of Baghdad.

Duleimi said after meeting Saddam four months ago that the former president denied a US account that he surrendered to US forces when found in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit.

Saddam, a Sunni Arab, faces charges related to crushing Kurdish and Shi'ite revolts.

One of the more specific charges against Saddam accuses him of killing members of the Kurdish Barzani family en masse, as well as a 1988 chemical weapons attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja that killed thousands.

Saddam appeared in front of an investigative judge last year and defended his 1990 invasion of Kuwait as fulfilling a just territorial claim. He said he heard about the Halabja massacre through the media.

The former president was born in 1937 in the Oga village north of Baghdad. He turns 68 today.

- REUTERS