Posted on 05/03/2003 6:53:57 AM PDT by kattracks
Iraqi footballer tells of torture under Saddam
By Huda Majeed Saleh
BAGHDAD, May 3 (Reuters) - Losing a football game could usually cost a championship or maybe a manager's job. It also shatters the dreams of supporters.
But in Saddam Hussein's Iraq it cost much more.
Run by Uday, the eldest son of the man who ruled Iraq for 24 years with an iron fist until he was deposed in a U.S.-led war last month, losing on the pitch meant imprisonment, beatings and sometimes starvation.
"We used to play under great psychological pressure because losing the match meant punishment," Samir Kazim, a striker who played for Iraq's national team between 1988-99, told Reuters.
"After each match the assistant coach counted every player's mistakes and every mistake meant a whip, which was increased later to two whips," Kazim, 38, added.
He said Uday once imprisoned the entire youth team in a farm outside Baghdad for a whole week with no food or water.
"After four days the whole team got sick as they were forced to drink water contaminated with animal waste and eat animal food," he said. "Uday later was forced to take them out of the farm on a recommendation of a doctor who warned against an imminent outbreak of an epidemic," Kazim said.
The torture allegations are the latest told by Iraqi athletes who say they suffered under Saddam's Iraq.
Former Iraqi athletes who had fled the country and are trying to prove that Uday had sports stars tortured and killed for losing said last month they feared the evidence had gone up in smoke in air strikes on the headquarters of Iraq's National Olympic Committee, headed by Uday.
Some alleged that 52 athletes were murdered on the orders of Uday and others in the Saddam clan.
Uday was regarded as Saddam's heir apparent until he was wounded in a gun attack in 1996. His father put him in charge of the Olympic Committee and the soccer federation in 1984, midway through the war with Iran, to secure sporting success as a way to boost morale.
STILL LIVING WITH FEAR
Uday did not only punish players for mistakes on the field.
He once whipped players for buying electrical appliances after a game in the Kurdish town of Duhouk.
"One time I was hit 32 times on the sole of my feet along with 15 other team mates for bringing electric devices from Duhouk where we played a match," Kazim said.
"One by one we were admitted to a room in the first floor of the committee while others waited downstairs and as we were waiting we heard screams," Kazim said.
"I was the last one to be beaten. They beat me with a thick stick. I tolerated the first 22 strikes but the remaining 10 were so burning that I started to scream," he said.
"I walked with a hint of a limp for a week after the beating. My feet were so swollen," he said.
Kazim said he will live in fear of Uday for as long as the fate of Saddam and his two sons remains a mystery.
"A week ago an American network interviewed me but I asked them not to broadcast it now fearing that Uday might watch it on television from his hideout," he said.
Kazim said he wished he was younger so he could play in the post-Saddam era, which he hoped would be better.
"I feel sorrow that I have to quit playing. I wish I was younger to play with my old team mates who have returned to form a new soccer team without fear and without Uday."
05/03/03 09:33 ET
The anti-war crowd can B & M all it wants...They have proven time and time again how wrong they are when it comes to these matters.
Iron Maiden just ain't a band!
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