Gunmen in Baghdad have shot dead a lawyer who acts for one of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants and wounded another member of the defence team.

News agencies, quoting from Iraqi police and legal sources, say that three gunmen opened fire on a car carrying Adel al-Zubeidi and Thamer Hamoud al-Khuzaie, lawyers working for two of Saddam's co-defendants, killing al-Zubeidi and wounding Mr al-Khuzaie.

Police Lieutenant Khalid Hassan said that the two lawyers were driving through the predominantly Sunni Muslim Adil neighbourhood of Baghdad about 12:45pm local time when an Opel with a driver and three masked gunmen pulled alongside and sprayed their car with automatic weapons fire.

Al-Zubeidi, who represented Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former vice-president of Iraq, was killed immediately but Mr al-Khuzaie, who acts for Saddam’s half-brother, Barazan Ibrahim, was only slightly wounded, according to reports.

Saddam’s main lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, who severely criticised the protection offered to the former dictator’s legal team after a senior lawyer was shot in Baghdad last month, blamed the Iraqi authorities for today's attack, claiming that the gunmen used "government vehicles".

"The aim of these organised attacks is to scare Arab and foreign lawyers," Mr al-Dulaimi told al-Jazeera televisiom. "We call upon the international community, on top of them the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to send an investigative committee because the situation is unbearable."

Today's shooting comes less than three weeks after the murder of Saadoun al-Janabi, another lawyer representing one of Saddam's co-defendants.

Al-Janabi, defending Awad Hamed al-Bandar, who sat next to the toppled dictator in the dock in the opening days of the trial, was dragged from his east Baghdad office by ten gunmen, witnesses said. His body was found near a Sunni mosque in the area, with two bullets in his head.

After the murder of al-Janabi, several members of the defence team said they would not appear in court until their security was improved. But so far, the lawyers have refused protection from the Iraqi Interior Ministry, saying that it is dominated by anti-Saddam elements, and from the US military.

The trial of Saddam and his seven co-defendants for the massacre of more than 140 Shia Muslim villagers in 1982 began on October 19 under heavy security in the fortified Green Zone of Baghdad. The trial is currently adjourned until November 28.

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