Ramsey Clark, the attorney general under U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, who later defended many unpopular clients, including Saddam Hussein, has died at the age of 93.
Clark, who was the son of attorney general and Supreme Court justice Tom Clark, died on Friday, according to American media outlets.
After leaving the Johnson administration, Clark began a career as a civil rights lawyer in New York City, fighting civil rights cases and against the death penalty.
He also took on many abhorrent clients, who were avowed American enemies, including Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic, terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman who was involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and most famously Saddam Hussein, who he defended at the Iraqi Special Tribunal after Hussein’s capture during the Iraq War.
Ramsey was harshly criticized for defending the Iraqi dictator. Historian and writer Daniel Pipes in a tweet upon learning of his Ramsey's death, described him as “Saddam Hussein’s apologist.”
Ramsey long had a troubled relationship with the American Jewish community. While he was an advocate for Soviet and Syrian Jews, he also greatly angered the community by defending Nazi concentration camp guard Karl Linnas against extradition and by representing the PLO in a lawsuit over the killing of cruise ship passengers in a terror hijacking.