Izzi-Din Mohammed Hassan al-Majid, an Iraqi exile living in London said he was arranging an asylum application for Raghad, 35, and Rana, 33, who are currently living in Baghdad.
Britain is top of the sisters' list for asylum destinations, said al-Majid, but if they are refused access, they will try to start new lives in Egypt, Qatar or the United Arab Emirates.
Al-Majid said the two women were living with their nine children in two rooms of a family's house, and were forced to wash their own clothes and cook their own food.
"They live in a severe psychological disorder," he said.
Neither they nor he had any idea of the whereabouts of Saddam or his sons Uday and Qusay, at the top of the US-led coalition's most-wanted list since the end of the Iraq (news - web sites) war, he said.
The two women's husbands were both assassinated by Saddam in 1996 after they defected to Jordan, then were lured back to Iraq by a promise that they would not be punished, al-Majid said.
"Under the Geneva Convention, the UK is not required to offer asylum to known war criminals or those who have breached the human rights of others, but I am not saying that this would apply in these two cases," a British Home Office spokesman said. ''Yahoo reports..'' |
