Free Republic

BAGHDAD, June 30 (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein, who brutalised Iraqis for decades, said good morning and sought to ask some questions when the United States handed him over to Iraqi justice on Wednesday, a witness said. Saddam, who was captured hiding near his hometown of Tikrit in December, looked in good health as he appeared before an Iraqi judge in the first legal step towards a trial for the cruelties he inflicted during his 35 years of power. "Saddam said good morning and asked if he could ask some questions," Salem Chalabi, a lawyer leading the work of a tribunal...

U.S. confirms Saddam's half-brother captured AS SAYLIYA CAMP, Qatar, April 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. military confirmed on Monday that Saddam Hussein's half-brother, one of 55 people on a U.S. most-wanted list, had been captured. "We can confirm that Watban Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti is in coalition custody," U.S. Central Command spokesman Captain Frank Thorp told reporters at war headquarters in Qatar. Anonymous U.S. officials said on Sunday Watban was captured near the Syrian border and turned over to the U.S. military, but Thorp gave no details of how he was taken into custody. Watban is Saddam's half brother from his...

ON Saturday, the seven of diamonds handed himself in. Yesterday, it emerged that the five of spades - Saddam Hussein’s half-brother Watban al-Tikriti - had been captured. Yet the ace of spades, Saddam Hussein himself, remains elusive. The collapse of the house of cards that is Saddam’s regime continues to gather pace. Watban al-Tikriti, a former interior minister, had been preparing to cross the mountain road into Syria; he was only 15 miles from the border, on the winding road north-west of Mosul, when he came upon a vehicle checkpoint manned by advancing Kurdish forces. After the surrender of Lt...