After four and a half years as Uday’s double, Yahia attempted suicide by slitting his wrists, no longer able to cope with his self-loathing at what his life had become.
In 1991, he finally escaped, walking out of a party in Baghdad, and fleeing to the Kurds. Today, he is settled in Ireland, with his Irish wife.
"Uday ruined my life," he said yesterday. "I was mad when I arrived in this country, but counselling has helped.
"He has tried to have me assassinated four times since I left Iraq. He has taken me from my country, my family, my language, my faith."
Now Yahia awaits further evidence that Uday is forever out of his life. "The US would say anything for propaganda. If he is dead, show me the photo. They put Saddam in power, he was their friend, and I blame them also for the terrible things which happened to me."
He regrets that Uday was not caught and brought to trial for his crimes.
"Don’t tell me that the US could not have taken him alive," he comments on the 200- soldier operation which took Uday and Qusay’s lives. "But the Americans did not want this because if you put these people in the dock, they would tell everyone that a lot of what they did they did because the American agents told them to."
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