- The United States has secretly flown Saddam Hussein out
of Iraq and imprisoned him under high security in a Gulf Arab state.
-
- After his capture in December, he was initially taken
by helicopter to a US aircraft carrier in Gulf waters for extensive interrogation.
-
- After lengthy questioning, he was transferred to an American
air base in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, although the emirate's royal
family was not even told of his presence.
-
- Amid the bloody and growing insurgency in Iraq, US officials
refused to discuss Saddam's place of imprisonment. Many Iraqis still believe
he is in Iraq, possibly at the big American base at Balad, 90km north of
Baghdad on the road to Tikrit, Saddam's hometown.
-
-
- But the increasingly sophisticated guerrilla attacks
against the US raised fears that insurgents would try to stage a spectacular
prison escape for the former Iraqi dictator, so Qatar was chosen as the
safest place to hold him in the Middle East.
-
- Under international law and the Geneva Conventions, it
is legal for an occupying power to move a prisoner of war outside the frontiers
of the country of which he is a citizen.
-
- This is why the Americans almost immediately made Saddam
an official PoW, an act which initially surprised many.
-
- - Independent Foreign Service
-
- ©2004 The Star. All rights reserved http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=132&fArticleId=396144
|
