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Saddamâs half-brother can offer insight
A Kurdish official said Monday Saddam Hussein's half-brother Watban Ibrahim al-Tikriti would disclose the fate of more than 180,000 Kurds who went missing in the 1980s when the regime undertook a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Kosert Rasul, a politburo member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan told United Press International, that al-Tikriti, arrested by U.S. forces on Sunday, was minister of interior and highly placed in the security apparatus when the ethnic-cleansing operations against Kurds were launched.
| He'd since left that job and spent his time recently laundering the Saddam family fortune... |
"Al-Tikriti is supposed to have information about those operations and the location of mass graves of their victims," Rasul said. He said the Iraqi regime never gave a hint about the fate of 10,000 members of al-Barzan tribe who were rounded up in 1982 and some 182,000 other Kurds who were the victims of the campaign in 1988. "Watban al-Tikriti was in the inner circle of the regime and held high-ranking security positions in the 1980s ... That is why it is possible that he has answers to the queries of the families of those victims," Rasul said. The Kurdish official said he hoped al-Tikriti's arrest will be followed by similar arrests of Iraqi officials "who committed crimes against humanity." He also urged Iraqis to inform humanitarian organizations and U.S. and British forces about the hideouts of Saddam's aides who vanished after Baghdad's fall to coalition troops.
| Some are doing that. That part of it's starting to come together nicely, in fact... |
Al-Tikriti was arrested in the region of Rabia'near the Syrian border after residents told U.S. forces of his whereabouts. He was taken by a U.S. helicopter to an undisclosed destination to be interrogated.
Ah, yes, the world famous "Undisclosed Location". Now he has a very short time to make a deal before we don't need him. Life in a U.S. prison vs dancing at the end of a rope.
Posted by: Steve 2003-04-14 |
