Just went into the subscription side of SCMP and didnt see any reference to the story in any of their sections. Could be just another red herring from our friends in the former republic of Gaul.
I've been trying the search function at SCMP.com for "asylum" - and it finally found two articles today -
March 2 - "Stanley Ho claims North Korea offered dictator asylum"
and
March 3 - "'NOTHING TO ADD' TO SADDAM ASYLUM CLAIM"