WASHINGTON, 21 May 2005 — A picture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was shown in his underpants and splashed across the front page of Britain’s biggest-selling daily newspaper, the Sun, and in the New York Post yesterday. Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch owns both papers.
Other photographs showed Saddam with short, dyed-black hair and a mustache, seated on a chair doing some washing by hand, sleeping and walking in what is described as his prison yard. The sensational pictures of Saddam in his underwear reignited the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.
The Sun said it obtained the photos from “US military sources,” who allegedly told the Sun they had handed over the pictures “in the hope of dealing a body blow to the resistance in Iraq.”
The US military in Baghdad said the photos violated military guidelines “and possibly Geneva Convention guidelines for the humane treatment of detained individuals.” The military opened an investigation into how the photos were released.
“The specific issue here is that these images are against (Department of Defense) policy. It’s not the content of the photo that is the issue at hand, but it is the existence or release of the photos,” US military spokesman Staff Sgt. Don Dees said, adding the pictures might be a year old.
Under the Geneva Conventions and special agreements with the United Nations, the United States and its allies are forbidden to release photographs of prisoners of war such as Saddam.
The Sun 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 rage over the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison when photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners shocked the world and caused immense damage to America’s credibility in the Arab world.
President George W. Bush was briefed by senior aides about the photos’ existence and he “strongly supports the aggressive and thorough investigation that is already under way” that seeks to find who took them, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is responsible for monitoring prisoners of war and detainees, said the photographs violated Saddam’s right to privacy.
“Taking and using photographs of him is clearly forbidden,” ICRC Middle East spokeswoman Dorothea Krimitsas said. US forces are obliged to “preserve the privacy of the detainee.”
Aside from US soldiers, the only others with access to Saddam are his legal team, prosecuting judge Raed Johyee and the ICRC.
Khalil Al-Duleimi, Saddam’s defense lawyer in Iraq, criticized the American handling of Saddam but said he would not comment on the photographs until he learned whether they were genuine.
But Ziad Khassawneh, head of Saddam’s defense team, was quoted by Al-Jazeera television as saying he planned to sue the British tabloid. Khassawneh said his team would “pursue all the necessary legal steps to see to it that those who commit such base acts against any prisoner, and especially against President Saddam, are punished.”
Saddam was captured in December 2003 while hiding in a concealed hole in the ground near his hometown of Tikrit, 130 km north of Baghdad. He is due to go on trial for war crimes this summer, and is being held in a heavily guarded American compound near Baghdad.
