PARIS President Saddam Hussein's lawsuit against a French editor who called him a "pathetic simpleton" was delayed for a month yesterday, after French judges retired to consider whether the Iraqi leader is a bona fide head of state.
The judges presiding at the Paris law courts face a diplomatically sensitive decision over a legal technicality. If they rule that the Iraqi dictator is a head of state, they will bring on Saddam's wrath because French law permits journalists to insult foreign leaders, and his case will collapse.
However, if the judges' deliberations lead them to decide that Saddam is not a head of state, this could also offend the dictator, even though the ruling would allow him to proceed with a lawsuit as a private individual.
Saddam wants to bring a case for "insult and defamation"
against Jean Daniel over an article published in the Nouvel Observateur last September which describes him as a "cretin", a "monster" and a "pathetic simpleton".