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Backlash fear over Saddam pictures
By Daily Mail Last updated at 00:00am on 20.05.05
The picture could cause a new wave of violence.
Sensational pictures of Saddam Hussein in his underwear were printed last night - reigniting the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.
The toppled dictator is seen in his jail cell wearing nothing but white underpants as he folds a pair of trousers.
Saddam is being held by U.S. guards and it is believed the photographs, printed in later editions of today's Sun, were taken by American sources.
The newspaper would not say how it came by the pictures or give any details about how they were taken.
But the humiliating image of such a high-profile prisoner is bound to add to the furore of the abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Pictures of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners shocked the world and caused immense damage to American standing in the Arab world. Saddam, 67, has been held by U.S. forces at
a compound near Baghdad since his capture December 2003 in a tiny 'spiderhole' cellar in north Iraq.
He made his first court appearance last July and his trial on war crimes and genocide charges is one of the first priorities of the fledgling Iraqi government.
Typically, he was defiant as ever, branding U.S. president George Bush the 'real criminal' and defended Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
He has been allowed visits by lawyers and there was speculation that the leaking of the pictures could have been an attempt by supporters to smear his U.S. captors.
In the pictures Saddam looks well-fed and appears to have put on weight since his
The Pentagon was last night investigating what appeared to be a major breach of security over the photographs.
Saddam, who is due to go on trial for war crimes this summer, is being held in a heavily-guarded American compound near Baghdad.
Under the Geneva Convention and special agreements with the United Nations, the U.S. and its allies are forbidden to release photographs of prisoners of war such as Saddam.
The picture is certain to enrage his fellow Sunni Muslims and former members of his political party who are now part of the insurgent movement in Iraq.
'If this photograph proves to be genuine, it might result in a new intensive wave of violence,' said a Pentagon source last night.
'Again, presuming it's genuine, its release will be tremendously embarrassing to us. We must find out where this came from.'
