Red Cross pays another visit to Saddam
Wednesday, November 24, 2004 Posted: 10:06 AM EST (1506 GMT)
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The international Red Cross has visited Saddam Hussein again to check on his condition in detention, a spokesman said Wednesday.
Muin Kassis, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Amman, Jordan, said he was not immediately able to give details of the visit, the latest in a series that the ICRC has been making to the former Iraqi president since he was captured by U.S. forces last December.
The ICRC team, which usually includes a doctor, has been seeing Saddam every six to eight weeks in a prison in Iraq, where it also visits other "high-value detainees." The last confirmed visit by the organization was in early October.
The ICRC refuses to disclose details of his health or circumstances, but it has carried letters from him to his family.
Saddam underwent surgery to repair a hernia at the end of September and made a full recovery, a U.S. official said last month.
The U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Saddam's health was good "with no major ailments or concerns."
In July, the Guardian newspaper in Britain and Newsday in New York quoted Iraq's human rights minister, Bakhtiar Amin, as saying Saddam was being treated for high blood pressure and a chronic prostate infection and was suffering from a hernia.
Saddam is believed to be held in an American-guarded facility near Baghdad International Airport.
He appeared in court in July for a preliminary hearing into charges of alleged crimes committed during his rule. |
