BAGHDAD, Iraq – Saddam Hussein and his seven co-defendants went on hunger strike yesterday to protest the shooting death of an attorney on the ousted Iraqi leader’s defense team – the third such killing in the eight-month-old trial.

Lawyer Khamis al-Obeidi, a Sunni Arab who represented Saddam and his half-brother Barzan Ibrahim, was abducted from his home yesterday morning by men wearing police uniforms, his colleagues said. His body was found riddled with bullets on a street near the Shiite slum of Sadr City. Police provided a photo of Obeidi’s face, head, and shoulders drenched in blood.

Saddam’s chief attorney, Khalil al-Dulaimi, blamed the killing on the Interior Ministry, which Sunnis have alleged is infiltrated by so-called Shiite death squads.

“We strongly condemn this act and we condemn the killings done by the Interior Ministry forces against Iraqis,” he said.

There was no comment from the ministry. Hit squads and other gangs are known to disguise themselves as police officers.

Married with six children, Obeidi was the third member of Saddam’s defense team to be killed since the trial began on Oct. 19.

Mr. Dulaimi and his colleagues said the murder was an attempt to intimidate the defense before it begins final arguments July 10, a process that will take about 10 days.

“We consider his killing a message to us in the defense: ‘To continue what you are doing will result in death in broad daylight on the streets of Baghdad.’ It is a message that’s written in blood,” an Egyptian lawyer retained by Saddam, Mohammed Moneib, said.

Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi said the trial would continue.

“We will defy terrorism,” Mr. Moussawi told the Associated Press. “We will continue with the trial and will not be deterred.” The prosecution has demanded the death penalty for Saddam in the killing of 148 Shiites during a crackdown against the town of Dujail in the 1980s.

Despite the killing, Saddam’s lawyers said they would forge ahead with their closing arguments.

However, Mr. Dulaimi told the AP in Amman, Jordan, that Saddam and his co-defendants “went on a hunger strike today to protest the killing of Khamis al-Obeidi.”

“They pledged not to end the strike until international protection is provided to the defense team,” he said.

Mr. Moussawi noted that members of the defense team had turned down an offer to live with their families in Baghdad’s heavily protected Green Zone, home to the Iraqi government, parliament and the American Embassy.