* Lawyers menaced by relatives of accused or plaintiffs
* Weak rule of law, tribal loyalties undermine justice
* Over 100 lawyers slain; violent intimidation common
BAGHDAD, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Iraqi lawyer Ahmed al-Abadi put
up with years of threatening phone calls for taking on sensitive
sectarian cases but, after he narrowly escaped death when three
shots were fired at his car last year, he could take no more.
Abadi had just finished successfully defending a woman
accused of involvement in a sectarian killing and he thinks this
was the reason behind the gun attack - but he decided against
seeking legal redress.
"I did not go to the police station to report it. I knew it
would not get me anywhere," he said, seated in the lawyers' room
of Rusafa appeal court in eastern Baghdad. "It has affected me
mentally and sapped my enthusiasm for work. I started to handle
only easy cases which do not cause me problems."
After years of vicious sectarian strife between Sunni and
Shi'ite Muslims, individual cases are increasingly coming to
court. But justice suffers because lawyers are an easy target in
a country where rule of law remains weak, tribal loyalties take
precedence and sectarian armed groups still operate.
Abadi is one of many lawyers who have suffered constant
threats and intimidation from relatives of the accused or the
plaintiff. Lawyers come into contact with both sides of a case
and they must appear in court, where everyone can see their
faces. Lawyers say some judges treat them as if they were
involved in the crime simply because they defend the accused.
"We are very sensitive about terrorism cases," the
55-year-old Abadi said, employing the term regularly used to
describe sectarian cases in Iraq.
"After taking more than one terrorist case, I quit," he said
as he removed his robe after attending the guilty verdict in a
corruption case of two clients who worked in a
government-spending watchdog.
RISING LAWYER DEATH TOLL
Sectarian warfare plagued Iraq in 2006-7, when death squads,
insurgents and militias claimed thousands of victims.
Violence is no longer an around-the-clock menace but remains
common. At least 116 people were killed and about 300 wounded in
bomb and gun attacks on July 23 - by far the bloodiest day since
U.S. troops withdrew in December, eight years after the invasion
that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.
And tensions between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims still run
high as politicians feud over power-sharing in government.
Practicing law is often a life-threatening profession.
Iraq's lawyers syndicate says 103 lawyers were killed
between 2003-2008 but the actual number could be double that
since not all cases are reported. The syndicate, which has
50,000 members, lacks figures on victims for after 2008.
Abadi defended a woman who was accused with her husband of
kidnapping and killing her husband's friend, a Shi'ite, when he
visited them in their home in a Sunni district of Baghdad.
The couple said gunmen had broken into their house and
kidnapped the guest, but the victim's relatives accused them of
the crime. Abadi, who was the woman's lawyer, won the case and
his client was released from prison.
Shortly afterwards three gunmen in a BMW car opened fire at
him when he was driving and three bullets whizzed past his head,
shattering the window. He stopped his car, and they thought he
was dead and drove away.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the judiciary faces enormous
pressure in Iraq, particularly lawyers when intimidation,
including threats through text messages, is a fact of life.
"The lack of security allows lawyers to be threatened
particularly if they take on sensitive cases and those who make
threats are able to do so with impunity," Samer Muscati, a
researcher at the New York-based watchdog, said.
'SIR, LEAVE THIS CASE ALONE'
Thair al-Qassim, a Baghdad-based specialist in sectarian
cases, said he has been threatened 32 times.
His son was kidnapped and beaten severely in 2006 and only
freed when Qassim paid a $40,000 ransom. He was kidnapped
briefly himself in 2009 after militiamen targeted his car,
interrogated him and told him to stop covering certain cases. He
managed to escape unharmed.
Qassim has endured hand grenade attacks, threatening phone
calls and text messages and a letter thrown into his garden.
"All that because I defend Sunnis against Shi'ites or
Shi'ites against Sunnis," Qassim said.
"When I defend a client who is from the Sunni sect...someone
from the other side, the Shi'ite side, calls me and says 'Sir,
leave this case, otherwise you will face regrettable
consequences' - and vice versa."
But Qassim said he did not abandoned these cases because
this is how he earns his living.
He was part of the defence team for an Iraqi journalist who
threw his shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush in
December 2008. He received a phone call from someone telling him
to drop the case or he or his family would be killed.
It proved an empty threat - but it sticks in his mind.
Apart from the threats, lawyers say they are often prevented
from meeting clients, who undergo lengthy interrogations. The
Iraqi legal system is especially slow and bureaucratic.
According to Iraqi criminal law, arrested people should be
presented to a judge in 24 hours, but this rarely happens in
practice, lawyer Farhan al-Bighani said. "They should not stay
at the mercy of a police officer for a month or longer just
because he wants to extract a confession."
Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar, spokesman for the Supreme Judicial
Council, said lawyers could present their complaints and the
council would take legal procedures in such cases.
Lawyers complain some judges are under political pressure,
make decisions based on sectarian or tribal affiliations or are
corrupt, charges rejected by the Supreme Judicial Council which
says judges are independent, and not politically affiliated.
In one of Iraq's most high-profile and contested cases,
Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni politician in the
Iraqiya bloc, says he is being targeted in a legal investigation
partially because of sectarianism.
Hashemi fled Baghdad in December when the Shi'ite-led
government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sought his arrest on
charges that he ran a death squad.
Hashemi has said he is ready to face trial, but not in a
Baghdad court, which he believes is under the sway of Maliki in
a judicial system tainted by political bias.
Maliki's allies say the Hashemi trial is not political. But
many Iraqi Sunnis say they see a sectarian hand behind the case,
accusing Maliki of shoring up his position at their expense.
Lawyers and Human Rights Watch criticised a government
campaign in November to arrest Baathists and former military
officers who authorities maintained had plotted to oust Maliki
one month before the departure of U.S. troops.
Maliki said more than 600 people had been arrested on
evidence that they sought to undermine security in Iraq.
"We have spoken to lawyers and the families of detainees who
said they would not take on these types of cases because it
would put the lawyers at risk," HRW's Muscati said.
For lawyer Abadi who dodged the bullets, the lawyers
syndicate is not doing enough to defend his profession. He even
laments that lawyers cannot be armed to defend themselves.
"The lawyer is in the courtyard, fighting alone," he said.
