AFP
   
BAGHDAD, Jun 21: One of the lawyers defending ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Khamis al-Obeidi, has been killed in Baghdad and his body dumped, an interior ministry official said on Wednesday.   

"The police found the corpse of Obeidi tossed in a roundabout in the Ur neighborhood," the official said.   

He said Obeidi was kidnapped from Baghdad's southern Dora district and that his body had been found in Ur, a neighbourhood on the border between the predominantly Sunni district of Adhamiyah and Shiite Sadr City.   

But when AFP tried to contact Obeidi on his mobile phone following a report on state television about his killing, a man who identified himself as the lawyer's aide said he was "alive."   

"These are deliberate rumours spread against him (Obeidi), but he is alive," claimed the man.   

When the correspondent asked if he could speak to Obeidi, the man said he was not available.   

"I heard from his (Obeidi's) family that a group of men dressed in the uniform of interior ministry security forces took him away at 7:00 am (0300 GMT) today," Saddam's lead Iraqi lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said.    "I do not known his fate."   

Obeidi is the third defense lawyer for Saddam and his seven co-defendants to be killed since their trial for crimes against humanity over the killing of Shiite villagers opened in October.