Posted on 06/10/2003 10:56:10 AM PDT by knighthawk
Shouting "Long live the king," some 1,500 Iraqi tribal sheiks and monarchists welcomed Sharif Ali bin Hussein, a cousin of Iraq's last king who returned to the country Tuesday after spending 45 years in exile.
The London investment banker, whose family fled Iraq in 1958 when he was two, flew in by chartered jet and then drove to his family mausoleum that still cradles the remains of two of Iraq's previous kings, Faisal I and Ghazi, AP reported. After visiting the interior of the mausoleum, he spoke to those gathered in the garden behind the mosque-like building crowned by an azure tiled dome.
"After so many years outside Iraq, I have come home to my country," Sharif Ali said. "Through the willingness of the Iraqi people, we will rebuild this country. Iraqis have been patient all these years. You have suffered under this dictator. Now the dictator is gone," said Sharif Ali.
Sharif Ali called for an Iraq built on "dignity, freedom and democracy" and security. "It is a shame that in a rich country like Iraq, people don't get their salaries," Sharif Ali said.
In exile, Sharif Ali headed the London-based Iraqi opposition faction - the Constitutional Monarchy Movement, which was a member of the Iraqi National Congress (INC). He grew up in Lebanon and the UK, where he built up his successful career in investment banking.
In the past, he expressed his support for the restoration of the monarchy in Iraq. "The majority of the people welcome the return of the monarchy because they believe that the monarchy is the system that will guarantee the reunification of Iraqi society," he told a Qatari newspaper last year.
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