Saddam's feared half-brother captured in blow to insurgency
COLIN FREEMAN
IN BAGHDAD
A HALF-BROTHER of Saddam Hussein, who was one of his most reviled enforcers, has been arrested in Syria on suspicion of bankrolling anti-coalition insurgents, Iraqi officials said yesterday.
Sabawi Ibrahim Hasan, a strongman who once served as a head of Saddam’s feared security services, was held after nearly two years on the run. Syrian authorities captured him and handed him over to Iraq in an apparent goodwill gesture.
He was number 36 on the deck of 55 most-wanted Iraqis issued by United States troops after Saddam’s fall in April 2003. He also featured in the US list of the top 30 people sought for supporting the insurgency.
The office of the prime minister, Ayad Allawi, gave no further details as to the circumstances of his capture, although it is known that he had a $1 million bounty on his head.
The announcement was greeted with delight by many Iraqis, who, despite chafing under US occupation, recall Hasan as epitomising all the worst aspects of Saddam’s nepotistic rule.
Even in the former dictator’s Tikriti peasant clan, he was considered something of a black sheep - a short, overweight semi-literate whose sole qualification was his aggressive devotion to his leader.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was the dungeon master of Baghdad’s main public security HQ, where he is said to have presided over the torture and murder of many prisoners.
Iraqis yesterday recalled him delighting in humiliating lesser members of the security forces for trivial offences.
"He was a horrible man who used bad language all the time," said one Iraqi journalist. "I remember seeing him once on TV swearing at a police captain who he found out had been leading prayers at his local mosque.
"Sabawi said to him, ‘Do you think you are a better Muslim than the rest of us?’ Then he threatened to tear the captain’s moustache off, which is a huge insult in the Arab world."
Sabawi affected an even greater presidential swagger than Saddam himself, the journalist said. Whenever his motorcade left the intelligence HQ, local traffic police would be ordered to clear all nearby roads and junctions.
After playing a role in Saddam’s brutal suppression of the Shiite uprising in 1991, Sabawi became a presidential adviser, a role which saw his importance in the regime gradually diminish.
Saddam’s two other half-brothers, Barzan and Watban, were captured in April 2003 and are expected to stand trial along with the former leader at Iraq’s new war-crimes court later this year.
The three were among a "dirty dozen" of ex-regime figures who appeared for a preliminary hearing last July, when initial accusations were read out against them. All are likely to face the death penalty.
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My Commentary: If Syria "assisted" in the capture, is that strong evidence that they were harboring him? Is this their sacrifice they expect to get them past the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri? |
