Ramsey Clark, Saddam’s lawyer, dies
Ramsey Clark, who promoted civil rights as America’s top law enforcement official in the 1960s but later helped defend Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic in court, has died at 93. The often controversial liberal figure and former attorney general died April 9 at his home in New York City, a niece, Sharon Welch, told US media. No cause of death was given.
His political arc was extraordinary. While serving under president Lyndon Johnson, Clark’s Justice Department prosecuted popular author and pediatrician Benjamin Spock for helping Vietnam War protesters evade the draft. But he also filed the first school desegregation and voting rights suits in the US North. Within years of leaving government in 1969, he had become a stunningly direct critic of US foreign policy, which he called “genocidal,” and of military spending, which he termed “certifiably insane.”
Defender of the Unpopular
He became a defender of unpopular figures and causes, including Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, the ex-Yugoslav president accused of war crimes, and Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther jailed in Pennsylvania for killing a policeman. Everyone, however unpopular, deserved a proper defense, he insisted. Clark’s death was mourned Saturday by figures ranging from Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi, who tweeted that he was “an indefatigable defender of Palestinian & human rights,” to Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who said Clark had “denounced the great injustices committed by his country worldwide.”
Despite Clark’s criticism of US policies, president Jimmy Carter turned to him to attempt to negotiate the release of the 53 American hostages held in Tehran in 1979. Though his effort failed, Clark later returned to Iran on his own and said the continuing hostage taking was “understandable”. He urged the US to apologize to Iran for misdeeds, drawing a warning from a furious Carter that he could be prosecuted for violating a travel ban. —AFP