Attorney for Iraqi Defendant Seized

Gunmen kidnapped an attorney from his office in the Iraqi capital on Thursday, the day after he represented one of Saddam Hussein’s co-defendants in court.

Saadoun Janabi, attorney of defendant Awad Hamed Bandar, was seized in the Shaab district of northern Baghdad. Bandar, former head of Hussein’s Revolutionary Court, was charged Wednesday along with the former Iraqi leader and six other defendants with crimes against humanity in a 1982 massacre of Shiite Muslims.

It was not immediately clear whether the kidnapping was related to the case, and no other details were available.

The kidnapping came as car bombs, shootings and rocket attacks around the country left at least nine Iraqis dead. Gunmen launched attacks in Baghdad’s Dora and Sadiya neighborhoods as well as the Yusufiya district south of the capital.

Among those killed were an Iraqi intelligence officer and three civilians, including a child attending school in the capital’s Mansour district.

Two car bombs around the town of Baqubah left at least five Iraqis dead and 17 injured. One of the car bombs targeted a passing American patrol. Witnesses said there were U.S. casualties, but there was no confirmation from American officials.

“I saw an American Humvee burning and another damaged,” said Iraqi policeman Jabir Awad. “American soldiers were being evacuated from the fire.”

The U.S. military announced the deaths of two Americans elsewhere in the country. A car bombing Wednesday in the western city of Karabilah killed a Marine, while a soldier at a base near the northern city of Mosul died of a “nonhostile” gunshot wound Tuesday, the military said. No further details were released about either incident.

In other developments Thursday, Rory Carroll, an Irish journalist for London’s Guardian newspaper, was freed by kidnappers after being detained for more than 24 hours. The 33-year-old war correspondent was captured by gunmen after spending three hours with a Shiite family in Baghdad’s Sadr City district during the day of Hussein’s trial.

“I don’t know who took me,” Carroll told Reuters news service. “I’m fine. I was treated reasonably well,” he said, adding that he wanted to continue reporting on Iraq, though his immediate plans were unclear.

Carroll was the 37th journalist kidnapped in Iraq, according to International News Safety Institute, an advocacy group.

The judge in Hussein’s trial said Thursday that a former intelligence agent who is hospitalized with cancer would testify soon in the case. Rizgar Mohammed Amin told wire services that the court wanted Wadah Sheik’s testimony before the trial resumed Nov. 28. Sheik had worked in Dujayl, the town at the center of the charges in the trial, Amin said.

Iraq has been struggling to quell an insurgency while moving forward to establish a permanent government. Ballot counting continued Thursday in an Oct. 15 referendum on Iraq’s proposed constitution, which has sharply divided the country between Shiites and Kurds who largely support the charter and Sunni Arabs who for the most part oppose it.

The Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni group, had agreed to back the draft charter in exchange for last-minute concessions. But on Thursday, the party issued a statement questioning the referendum, citing “evidence of huge violations and widespread manipulation” in the vote.

“The party was a witness in many polling centers that were subjected to this,” the statement said, alleging that government forces interfered with the vote.

Iraq’s election commission, which is seeking to verify unusually lopsided vote totals in some provinces, released partial turnout figures that showed Kurdish and Sunni voters participated in high numbers.

Kurds voted in numbers ranging from 75% to 90% in provinces where they were the predominant group. In the mostly Sunni province of Salahuddin, turnout was 88%.

In the Shiite-dominated southern provinces, turnout ranged from 54% to 63%.