Baghdad, Iraq ? Saddam Hussein’s family said it has dissolved his Jordan-based legal team and appointed Iraqi lawyer Khalil Dulaimi as the “one and sole legal counsel.” The move was seen as reorganizing the defense ahead of Saddam’s upcoming trial.

With some of Saddam’s more than 22-lawyer strong defense team criticized for past comments deemed damaging to the defense, a statement by Saddam’s family, and signed by his oldest daughter Raghad, said the family was “obliged to rearrange the legal defense campaign given the unique nature of the case.”

The statement did not elaborate on the reasons. But a person close to the family with knowledge of the case said they were angered by statements issued by various lawyers and wanted only one legal voice to speak on Saddam’s behalf. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid upsetting the family.

An Iraqi judges who has interrogated Saddam also accused the ex-leader’s lawyers of making up stories of ill-treatment in hopes the trial will be moved outside Iraq.

In an interview Sunday, Judge Munir Haddad, an Iraqi Kurd, told Associated Press Television News that Saddam’s first trial will begin “within 45 to 50 days.” The first trial will involve Saddam’s alleged role in the 1982 massacre of Shiite Muslims in Dujail north of Baghdad.

Haddad denied recent claims by al-Dulaimi that the former president was attacked during a court appearance in late July and said such stories were an attempt to get the trial moved to Europe, where the death sentence is banned.

Chief of the defense team for Iraqi former President Saddam Hussein, Jordanian Mohammed Rashdan, left, talks with other members of the defense team at Tripoli airport in this July 6, 2004, file photo. Saddam Hussein's family said Monday it has dissolved the Jordan-based legal team, canceling the power of attorney it had given to international lawyers in a move seen as reorganizing Saddam's legal counsel ahead of his upcoming trial.

Also Monday, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, seeking to stem unrest after about 1,000 protesters clashed with police in riots over shoddy utility services, sent a government delegation to the riot-torn city of Samawah, about 230 miles southeast of Baghdad. One person was killed and 75 others injured in the clashes Sunday in the Shiite city where Japanese troops are based.

The city was generally calm, despite earlier rocket-propelled grenade attacks targeting the offices of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country’s largest Shiite group that was widely blamed for the shoddy services. Demonstrators also damaged the governor’s office.

The U.S. command said Sunday that two Army soldiers and a Marine died in two bombings the previous day. At least 1,828 U.S. military personnel have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.