Iraq: Lawyers for Saddam Hussein and his aides severed all contact with the court trying the former Iraqi president yesterday after the second killing of a member of the defence team since the trial began last month.
The judge said the court was considering its response.
But the country's prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, made clear he would not heed calls to move the trial abroad.
Hinting Saddam's own followers had a hand in the killings, he said lawyers had refused police protection.
Judge Rizgar Amin, who presides over a panel of five trial judges, told Reuters they had yet to decide how to respond to the problem:
"Now is the time to sit and talk and discuss this among ourselves so we can reach a decision in the coming days." It was for the government to protect the lawyers, he said.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the attacks undermined efforts to uphold the rule of law.
"It is vitally important that the security of all involved with the tribunal should be equally assured to ensure a trial free from intimidation and coercion," he said through his spokeswoman yesterday.
In the latest violence in Iraq yesterday a suicide car bomb in the mixed Shia and Sunni Arab town of Baquba, north of Baghdad, killed seven Iraqi policemen, army and medical sources said. Also yesterday two car bombs in north-east Baghdad killed at least six people and wounded 25 others. - (Reuters)