Baghdad, Iraq ? Attorneys for Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants refused to attend a special court hearing Sunday, citing worries about violence and the recent assassination of one of their colleagues.

The defense attorneys have demanded that the Iraqi government and U.S. forces let them deputize their own relatives and tribesmen as armed bodyguards before they agree to continue to take part in the trial, which began Wednesday.

Prosecutors interviewed a dying former intelligence officer Sunday in a private hospital in the presence of an investigative judge but without defense lawyers. They said they had offered the defense several ways to take part in the session.

The lead prosecutor said the witness testified against Saddam and his deputies in connection with charges stemming from the punishment of Shiite villagers in the town of Dujail after a 1982 assassination attempt.

The spat over the hearing shows how the two sides might duel in the media before the next full court session on Nov. 28, as well as the courtroom.

The U.S.-backed government vows that the trial will continue.

“The government will not interfere in the judiciary process, but its duty is to provide these trials in order to provide justice for the people,” government spokesman Laith Kubba told reporters Sunday. “We will not transfer the trial outside Iraq because all the resources are here. We want the people to sense justice.”

Defense attorneys say they can’t mount a proper defense for their clients in the current climate of insecurity. Saadoun Janabi, the attorney for one of the defendants, was found dead Thursday with a pair of bullets in his head an hour after he was grabbed from his office by gunmen.

The killing of the 58-year-old attorney, who was defending the former head of Saddam’s Revolutionary Court, Awad Hamed Bandar, has sparked an uproar among defense lawyers, who have demanded an international investigation.

Kubba said the defense lawyers rebuffed government offers of the same protections and security it has given other officers of the court. They rejected an offer to obscure lawyers’ faces during trial and keep their names private, he said.

“We offered them security advice,” he told reporters. “If they ask for security, it’s our duty to provide it.”

Defense lawyers say they mistrust the Interior Ministry, which they say is infiltrated by Shiite militiamen who wish them harm.

“We do not know the people in the Ministry of Interior,” said Khamis Ubaidi, a veteran criminal attorney who represents several of the defendants. “We want our relatives to protect us. We want the people in charge to issue licenses for them to carry weapons.”

Prosecutors on Sunday interviewed Wadha Ismail Sheik, a high-ranking intelligence official who is apparently dying of cancer, about the defendants’ involvement in the Dujail case, which might be the first of half a dozen cases against Saddam.

Lead prosecutor Jaffar Mussawi said the court had offered the dozen or so defense attorneys four ways to attend the session, including participation via video teleconference or the supply of a U.S. military escort, but the defense refused.

Mussawi said the hearing went ahead Sunday and was recorded for possible introduction as evidence once the trial resumes next month.