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Pictures show Saddam Hussein in his underwear
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-20 20:08
LONDON - A picture of Saddam Hussein in his underpants was splashed across the front-page of Britain's biggest-selling newspaper on Friday.
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| A man reads the British tabloid newspaper The Sun in London May 20, 2005. The paper carries a front page picture showing imprisoned former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in his underpants and has other pictures inside of various aspects of his life in prison. [Reuters] |
The Sun newspaper quoted U.S. military sources as saying they had handed over the pictures "in the hope of dealing a body blow to the resistance in Iraq."
Other photographs showed Saddam, with short, dyed-black hair and a mustache, washing clothes by hand and asleep on his bed.
But a U.S. military statement said the pictures might be a year old, contravened Saddam's rights as a prisoner and could have broken the Geneva Convention.
"Multi-National Forces-Iraq is disappointed at the possibility that someone responsible for the security, welfare, and detention of Saddam would take and provide these photos for public release," the statement said.
"This lapse is being aggressively investigated to determine, if possible, who took the photos, and to ensure existing procedures and directives are complied with to prevent this from happening again," it said.
Toppled from power in the U.S. war in Iraq in April 2003, Saddam was captured hiding in a small underground bunker in December of the same year. Apart from a brief court appearance last year, no images of Saddam have been made public since then.
Saddam is expected to stand trial in next year on charges of genocide, torture and crimes against humanity. If he is found guilty he could face the death penalty.
"Saddam is not superman or God, he is just an aging and humble old man," The Sun quoted the military source as saying.
"It's important that the people of Iraq see him like that to destroy the myth. Maybe that will kill a bit of the passion in the fanatics who still follow him.
"It's over, guys. The evil days of Saddam's Baath Party are never coming back - and here's the proof," the source said.
The newspaper said the pictures were taken at a top secret location where Saddam was being held in a 12-ft by 9-ft (3.6-m by 2.7-m) cell, watched 24 hours a day on closed circuit television by special forces and military police.
It is not the first time pictures of U.S. detainees in Iraqi jails have been leaked to the media.
A year ago graphic photographs of the abuse of detainees in the notorious Abu Ghraib jail outraged world opinion and were described as the best recruiting campaign for Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.
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