Syria credited with Saddam half-brother capture
Iraqi officials said tonight that Syrian authorities captured Saddam Hussein’s half brother in Syria and handed him over to Iraq.
Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan was captured in Hasakah in northeastern Syria near the Iraqi border, said two senior Iraqi officials.
“The capture appeared to be a goodwill gesture by the Syrians to show that they are cooperating,” one official said.
The officials did not specify when Hassan was captured, only saying he was detained following the February 14 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut, Lebanon.
They added that Hassan was captured and handed over to Iraqi authorities along with 29 other members of Saddam’s collapsed Baath Party, whose Syrian branch has been in power in Damascus since 1963.
A third Iraqi official said Syrian security forces expelled Hassan from Syria into Iraq after he and a group of supporters had earlier tried to cross the Syrian border into Lebanon and Jordan.
In a statement, the prime minister’s office said the arrest “shows the determination of the Iraqi government to chase and detain all criminals who carried out massacres and whose hands are stained with the blood of the Iraqi people, then bring them to justice to face the right punishment”.
The government statement said Hassan had “killed and tortured Iraqi people”. It also said he had “participated effectively in planning, supervising, and carrying out many terrorist acts in Iraq”.
Syria has come under intense scrutiny following Hariri’s death, with many in Lebanon blaming Damascus and Beirut’s pro-Syrian government for the killing.
The United States and France also called on Damascus to withdraw 15,000 Syrian troops from Lebanon following Hariri’s death.
Washington has long accused Syria of harbouring and aiding former members of Saddam’s toppled Baathist regime suspected of involvement in the deadly insurgency against US-led forces in Iraq.
Hassan is No. 36 on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis released by US authorities after troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, and one of only 12 remaining at large. He is also suspected of financing insurgents in the post-Saddam era, and Washington had put a $1m (€0.75m) bounty on his head.
Under Saddam, Hassan served as head of the feared General Security Directorate, which was responsible for internal security, especially cracking down on political parties that opposed Saddam. Hassan had been accused of torturing and killing political opponents when was head of the body.
He later became a presidential adviser, the last post he held in the former regime.
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