Posted on 07/17/2003 9:13:35 AM PDT by BunnySlippers
Ex-Iraq Information Min Ordered 2 Murders [BAGHDAD BOB]
STOCKHOLM (AP)--A Swedish writer of Kurdish origin has filed a criminal complaint against Iraq's former information minister, accusing him of ordering the murder of two Iraqi dissidents in 1985, when he was Iraq's ambassador to Sweden.
Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf received wide attention during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq for hurling anti-American insults and outlandish claims of stunning Iraqi military victories over the invaders. He bemused many Arab television viewers and became notorious in the West, where he was ridiculed by Web sites, T-shirts and dolls.
"The image of al-Sahhaf as a comical individual is totally false. I want his true identity to be known. He is a killer," Kurdo Baksi told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday.
Baksi, who filed the complaint Wednesday, said al-Sahhaf had ordered the killings of Majid Hussain and Azad Jundi in June, 1985, when he was Iraq's ambassador to Sweden.
In December 1984, Hussain told a Stockholm newspaper he was a defected Iraqi intelligence officer. Seven months later he was found killed and cut into 54 pieces just outside the capital, Stockholm.
Jundi's position was not clear, though he was of Kurdish origin. He was found stabbed to death in a Stockholm suburb, also in June 1985.
In both cases, the Swedish security service and the police said they believed there were links to the regime in Baghdad and the embassy in Stockholm. But the suspected perpetrators had already fled the country and al-Sahhaf had diplomatic immunity.
Baksi said the persecutions of Kurds and exiled Iraqis in Sweden stopped after al-Sahhaf left Stockholm in August 1987.
"I hope that he will be arrested again and heard. In a longer perspective, I hope he will be brought to Stockholm and put on trial. He is not a diplomat any more and the statute of limitation has not yet expired. I hope there is enough material left from the old police inquiry," Baksi said.
Prosecutors will decide whether to investigate and charge al-Sahhaf.
Al-Sahhaf served as Iraq's ambassador to Italy, Sweden and the U.N. He later headed the Iraqi Broadcasting Company before being appointed foreign minister in 1991, a post he held for 10 years. He became information minister in 2001.
He disappeared the day Baghdad fell to U.S. forces April 9, and reportedly hid in a relative's home there, fearing revenge from angry Iraqis.
Last month, he surfaced in television interviews and said he had turned himself over to coalition forces but was set free. He is not on the list of 55 Iraqi wanted officials.
Al-Sahhaf is now in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, where he arrived from Baghdad on July 10 to take part in a series of interviews with Abu Dhabi Television, a satellite network. He could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Baksi, a novelist who writes in Swedish, was born in Batman in eastern Turkey in 1965 and moved to Sweden in 1980. He is a Swedish citizen.
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