IRAQ: BBC Television says that person that led U.S. forces to capture Saddam Hussein was one of the dictators' s former bodyguards

Record ID: 169593

  • Title: IRAQ: BBC Television says that person that led U.S. forces to capture Saddam Hussein was one of the dictators' s former bodyguards
  • Date: 15th December 2003
  • Summary: (EU) BAGHDAD, IRAQ (UNKNOWN DATE, 2003) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF MOHAMMED IBRAHIM OMAR AL-MUSSLIT (NOW WEARING HORIZONTAL STRIPED SHIRT, GLASSES AND MOUSTACHE) AND IRAQ ARMY OFFICIALS PROTECTING SADDAM WHO HOLDS BABY IN HIS ARMS AS CROWD SHOUTS WIDE OF SADDAM STANDING ABOVE CROWD SALUTING WIDE OF MOHAMMED IBRAHIM OMAR AL-MUSSLIT STEPS UP AND PUTS HANDS ON HIS GUN WIDE OF CROWD CHANTING VARIOUS OF SADDAM SMILING, MOHAMMED IBRAHIM OMAR AL-MUSSLIT PULLING PEOPLE AWAY SLV MOHAMMED IBRAHIM OMAR AL-MUSSLIT (LEFT OF PICTURE, HORIZONTAL STRIPED SHIRT) WALKING ALONGSIDE SADDAM IN STREET
  • Embargoed: 30th December 2003 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BAGHDAD, AL DAWR, UNIDENTIFIED LOCATION,BASRA IRAQ
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Conflict
  • Reuters ID: LVA7XS3ATRI8OGGM9AC5YE1LSPWI
  • Story Text: BBC television says Saddam's bodyguard led U.S.
    forces to the hiding place where the deposed Iraqi leader was found.
    A BBC programme to be broadcast on Sunday (March 28) says the man who led U.S. forces to Saddam Hussein's underground hiding place in Iraq was one of the deposed president's closest bodyguards, It found Mohammed Ibrahim Omar al-Musslit betrayed Saddam shortly after he himself had been arrested and interrogated in December.
    Saddam, who had a $25 million U.S. dollar bounty on his head after being ousted in last year's U.S.-led invasion, was number one in Washington's list of 55 most wanted Iraqis.
    The BBC's Panorama programme quoted U.S. soldiers as saying Musslit, a loyal lieutenant in Saddam's security organisation and Fedayeen militia, would not get the reward because he had not given the information willingly.
    Musslit was one of the people in a car with Saddam when he fled Baghdad after the fall of the city last April, the BBC said on its Web site ahead of Sunday night's Panorama broadcast.
    It said Musslit led troops to their prize hours after being arrested. He was flown to Tikrit, Saddam's home town, where U.S. officials interrogated him and made him point out where the deposed leader was hiding. Troops found Saddam in a hole in the ground near farm buildings. Footage of him shortly after he was discovered, having been in hiding for eight months, showed a man with a long grey and black beard and looking dishevelled and bewildered.
    Washington has never said who tipped off troops to Saddam's secret bunker and there was no independent confirmation of the BBC report, but the broadcaster said people close to Saddam confirmed to Panorama's reporter that it was Musslit.
    Top U.S. commander Major-General Raymond Odierno denied the source who revealed Saddam had been tortured, but told the programme he was "a shady character", adding that he believed "the U.S. Treasury gets to keep the money".
    In France, the lawyer known for defending Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and guerrilla Carlos the Jackal said on Saturday (March 27) that Saddam Hussein's nephew had chosen him to represent the deposed Iraqi president.
    Jacques Verges told Reuters in a telephone interview he had received a letter from Ali Barzan al-Tikriti, whose father Barzan al-Tikriti is Saddam's half-brother, asking him to defend the former Iraqi dictator.
    The U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad is setting up a war crimes tribunal to try Saddam on charges which may include genocide and crimes against humanity.
    Washington has said the 66-year-old Saddam, whose interrogation is being led by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), should be tried in Iraq.
    Verges, who is also defending former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, said he had accepted the job of defending Saddam and suggested his strategy would focus on the role played by the United States and other countries in supporting the Iraqi leader in the 1980s.
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