Saddam's Summer Reading

A reader passes along a clip from the Baghdad newspaper Azzaman, Iraq's liberal paper of record. That paper recently ran a short item [Arabic link] about Saddam's legal situation. Drawn from comments from a certain Giovanni Di Stefano, who is identified as one of Saddam's lawyers, the story reports that the former dictator has requested a copy of what is supposedly his favorite novel. That book's title is (I'm told) rendered in Arabic as "Kill the Bird That Laughs," and it is identified as the winner of a Pulitzer Prize. In short, the lawyer would like people to think that Saddam is even now being moved by To Kill a Mockingbird.