OF COURSE, HE'S FRENCH

You just can't make this stuff up...

A cigar-chomping French attorney who has represented a rogue's gallery of Nazis, serial killers and genocidal dictators said yesterday he's taking on a new client for "the trial of the century" - Saddam Hussein.

Jacques Verges, 79, told reporters he got a letter from one of Saddam's nephews telling him he had been chosen to represent the deposed Iraqi dictator.

He made clear he intends to try to turn the tables on his client's accusers by trying to put U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the stand.

U.S. officials say they will bring Saddam to justice for alleged crimes against the Iraqi people, but the time and date of the trial have yet to be set.

Saddam is being held by U.S. forces at a secret location.

"If I have to choose between defending the wolf or the dog, I choose the wolf, especially when he is bleeding," said the controversial Verges, who has been nicknamed The Devil's Advocate.

And then there is this perspective from the Iraqis.

Iraqis believe that plans by a French lawyer to take up the defence of Saddam Hussein after acting for a long list of unpopular clients highlights the "criminal" record of the former dictator.

Jacques Verges "has always defended gang leaders and Saddam is one of them," said Nureddin Dara, a Kurdish judge who is also a member of Iraq's US-installed interim Governing Council. "I don't think that his decision to defend Saddam will have any consequence on the trial," he said.