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Saddam interview via his lawyer
19.12.2005
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Saddam recounts his
capture to British tabloid
LONDON, Dec.19 (AFP) - Former Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein has for the first time recounted the
moment of his capture two years ago in an
"interview" conducted via his lawyer, British
newspaper The Sun said.
"The once feared despot broke his silence in an
interview with The Sun from his cell," the tabloid
title said, adding that Saddam was speaking through
his lawyer, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark.
Clark told the paper that before Saddam was cornered
by US troops in a cramped underground hideout near
his hometown Tikrit on December 13, 2003, he had
been "moving every day to a different location,
organising the insurgents".
When captured, the former Iraqi leader had been
about to flee the scene by motorbike, the paper
said. |
Former dictator Saddam Hussein
Photo : AFP
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"I came out of the house where I was hiding by this
hole. I went through the trap door. I went through
the hole, through the tunnel then lost
consciousness," Saddam said, adding: "I believe I
was betrayed. I have been set up."
Clark said Saddam "thinks he was gassed in the
tunnel".
"He tried to get to the exit of the tunnel. But he
did not have time to get away. He told us he spent
maybe minutes in this tunnel, not hours or days,"
Clark added.
According to US forces who pulled Saddam from his
hiding place, his first words to them were: "I am
Saddam Hussein, I am the president of Iraq and I
want to negotiate."
Saddam has since gone on trial along with seven of
his deputies for the massacre of 148 Shiites from
Dujail village following an assassination attempt on
the former president in 1982, and faces a possible
death sentence.
The Sun, a famously eurosceptic paper with a
particular fondness for needling France, also quoted
Saddam on his relations with French President
Jacques Chirac.
"Chirac has been a longtime friend of mine," the
paper cited him as saying.
In May, The Sun printed photographs it had obtained
of Saddam in his prison cell clad only in his
underwear.
"Tyrant's in his pants," was the gleeful headline,
using the British term for underwear briefs.
AFP
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