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 codefendant Awad al-Bander, in northern Baghdad's Ur district, behind a mosque, late on Thursday," a Baghdad police officer, Captain Ahmed Abdullah said.

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.

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

(Xinhua News Agency October 22, 2005)