Related: Lawyer involved in Saddam trial kidnapped

Saadoun al-Janabi (L) and Awad al-Bander (R)

    BAGHDAD, Oct. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- The defense lawyer involved in the trial of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen Thursday in Baghdad, was found shot dead, police said on Friday.

    "A police patrol found the body of Saadoun al-Janabi, lawyer for Saddam's co-defendant Awad al-Bander, in northern Baghdad's Ur district, behind a mosque, late on Thursday," a Baghdad police officer, Captain Ahmed Abdullah, told Xinhua.

    The body was shot with bullets in the head and the chest, Abdullah said.

    The victim was abducted by 10 masked gunmen in his office in Baghdad's eastern Shaab district on Thursday evening.

Lawyer Saadoun Sughaiyer al-Janabi, one of two attorneys for defendant Awad Hamed al-Bandar - one of seven Baath Party officials being tried with Saddam Hussein, appears in the court at Wednesday's opening session of the trial in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone in Iraq Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2005.

     The kidnapping came just one day after the trial of Saddam and his seven co-defendants started on Wednesday for slaughter of 148 Shiite residents in Dujail in 1982 after Saddam survived an assassination attempt. Enditem