CIA ABDUCTED FORMER IRAQI GENERAL FROM DENMARK

��Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.

Former Iraqi general Nizar al-Khazraji, who disappeared Monday while under house arrest in Denmark, was abducted to Saudi Arabia by CIA agents, the Danish tabloid B.T. reported Saturday.

Al-Kharaji led the Iraqi forces between 1987-1990 and has been accused of involvement in chemical attacks against the Kurdish minority in northern Iraq. He fled Iraq in 1995 and has denied involvement in attacks on Kurds.

Al-Khazraji allegedly was spirited out of his Danish home, where he had been under house arrest since November while Danish authorities investigated his involvement.

Police officials said it could not be ruled out that the former general had been taken by the CIA, and said it was unclear whether this would have been done against his will or not.

Danish prosecutors issued an international arrest warrant via Interpol for the al-Khazraji. dpa tb emc jm

It seems that Wafiq Samerrai, who had recently defected, predicted the death of Saddam's sons-in-law.

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
February 21, 1996

Kamel Majid's return sets stage for new episode in Iraqi drama

Cairo

Two high-ranking Iraqis and sons-in-law of President Saddam Hussein who defected to Jordan last August returned to Baghdad Wednesday after being "pardoned" by the Iraqi leader.

The return of General Hussein Kamel al-Majid, his brother Saddam Kamel and their wives mystified both foes and friends of the Iraqi regime who gave widely divergent theories about what was going on.

Many held the view that al-Majid - who as Minister of Industry had played a key role in Iraq's armament acquisition programme - had been allowed by his father-in-law to defect to Jordan for ulterior motives. The motives may have included a desire to mislead U.N. teams trying to dismantle Iraq's capability for manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, in addition to collecting information from dissident Iraqi groups on possible collaborators inside Baghdad.

Iraqi opposition leaders abroad noted however that al-Majid had failed to unify anti-Saddam forces or gain the trust of most Arabs during his seven-month-sting in Jordan.

"He wanted to come to Syria and to go to Saudi Arabia on official visits but he received no response from either country ... and I believe that he will be killed this year," said Wafiq Samerrai, a former Iraqi intelligence chief.

But Bayan Jabr, another prominent Iraqi opposition figure, representative of Mohamed Baker al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme (Shiite) Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, asserted al-Majid was from the beginning a part and parcel of the ruling Iraqi clan.

Mashaan al-Jabouri, leader of the Iraqi homeland Party, differed with this view. He said that he did not believe al-Majid's defection had been a playact orchestrated by Saddam because the Iraqi leader would not have "accepted to involve his daughters in such odd situations".

However, he predicted that al-Majid's return to Baghdad would lead to a bloody struggle inside the ruling family, particularly because of long-rumoured rivalries between al-Majid and Saddam's powerful son, Oday.

Reaction elsewhere ranged from a U.S. expression of almost disinterested "amazement" to a brief front page report in one leading Arabic daily titled "Playact is over".

Some Arab analysts said a family drama with unpredictable consequences may be unfolding in Iraq. Even the most ruthless Arab leaders have been known to have their soft spot - and in Saddam's case this may be his daughters.

So much for the "soft spot."

Den tidligere irakiske hærchef, Nizar al-Khazraji, som lever på tålt ophold i Danmark, skal fortsat være varetægtsfængslet i surrogat i sit hjem i Sorø.

Retten i Sorø besluttede fredag at forlænge surrogat-fængslingen med yderligere fire uger frem til den 21. marts. Det betyder, at al-Khazraji, som er sigtet for krigsforbrydelser mod kurderne i det nordlige Irak, ikke må forlade Danmark.

Dommeren i Sorø mener fortsat, at der er grundlag for at holde den tidligere hærchef i en slags husarrest, fordi der er grund til at frygte, at han vil stikke af fra en eventuelt kommende retssag.

I stedet for en fængselscelle har han dog fået lov til at bo i sit hjem.

Nizar al-Khazraji er sigtet for krigsforbrydelser mod kurderne i Nordirak i perioden 1984-1988, da mere end 180.000 mennesker forsvandt, og der i flere tilfælde blev brugt giftgas mod civile.

http://www.ekstrabladet.dk/VisArtikel.iasp?PageID=194608

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