Saddams defender
The week's news at a glance.
Paris
French lawyer Jacques Verges said this week that he would add Saddam Hussein to the list of famous despots he has defended. Verges, 79, has a long history of hobnobbing with people accused of terrorism or genocide. As a student at the Sorbonne, he became close friends with Pol Pot, who later went on to slaughter more than a million people in Cambodia. In the 1960s, Verges married an Algerian terrorist and began defending extremists on the left and right, including Venezuelan leftist Carlos the Jackal and Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie. No date or venue has been set for Saddam’s trial, and charges have not yet been filed, but Verges has already begun to craft a defense. “If there has been a crime against humanity, if there has been a genocide” in Iraq, he said, “it is the fault of the Americans and the British.”
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Exploring Georgia's southern highlands
The Week Recommends Visit Javakheti, Georgia's 'lake district', and meet the last-remaining 'spirit wrestlers' in the region
-
Delivery drivers face continuing heat danger with Trump's OSHA pick
The Explainer David Keeling is the former head of UPS and also worked at Amazon
-
Is that the buzzing sound of climate change worsening sleep apnea?
Under the radar Catching diseases, not those ever-essential Zzs