posted on March 24, 2003 06:48:20 PM new
As Iraq's top Olympic official, Uday Hussein is accused of the torture and murder of athletes who fail to win
As he stood at the double-door entrance to the office of Iraqi National Olympic Committee president Uday Hussein, the boxer knew what awaited on the other side. He had just returned from a Gulf States competition, where he had been knocked out in the first round. Now it was time to pay the price.
Inside the yellow-and-blue office, Uday, the older of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's two sons, paced the floor, waving his expensive Cuban cigar and glaring out the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Baghdad. "He was yelling about how Iraq should not be embarrassed by its athletes," recalls Latif Yahia, employed for nearly five years as Uday's body double -- he would stand in for Uday on occasions that were deemed a security threat -- and one of his closest associates to have escaped to the West. "He kept saying, 'This is my Iraq. Embarrassing Iraq embarrasses me.'"
With a wave of Uday's arm the manacled boxer was led into the room by Iraqi secret service. Sitting behind a dark wood desk beneath an oversized portrait of himself, Uday began his tirade. "In sport you can win or you can lose. I told you not to come home if you didn't win." His voice rising, he walked around the desk and gave the boxer a lesson. "This is how you box," he screamed as he threw a left and a right straight to the fighter's face. Blood dribbled from the athlete's nose as Uday launched another round of punches. Then, using the electric prod he was famous for carrying, Uday jolted the boxer in the chest.
Blood was streaming from a cut above the boxer's eye when Uday ordered his guards to fetch a straight razor. The boxer cried out as Uday held the razor to his throat, and as he moved the blade to the fighter's forehead, Uday laughed. He then shaved the man's eyebrows, an insult to Muslim males. "Take him downstairs and finish the job," Uday screamed.
Says Yahia, "They took him to the basement of the Olympic building. It has a 30-cell prison where athletes -- and anyone else who is out of favor with Uday -- are beaten and tortured. That was the last I ever heard of that boxer."
THE BUTCHER'S BOY , as he is sometimes called, is reputed to be the most brutal member of Iraq's notorious ruling family. As an infant he reportedly played with disarmed grenades. By 10 he was accompanying his father to the torture chamber at Qasr-al-Nihayyah (the Palace of the End, where many political enemies, including deposed King Faisal II, were killed) to watch Saddam deal with dissidents. By 16 he bragged of committing his first murder, telling classmates he had killed a teacher who had upbraided him in front of a girlfriend.
posted on March 24, 2003 07:15:37 PM new
The stories of Uday's inhumanity seem to go on endlessly.
I hope his absence in public since the first night of bombing in Baghdad means justice has finally caught up with him.
posted on March 24, 2003 07:17:41 PM new
I agree with Helen and her gang. Let's spend more time with these nice folks and try to reason and negotiate with them. After all, eveyone has a good quailty to them. Maybe we should take them a freshly baked pan of brownies. That might be a start. LOL
News polls are showing more favor toward the war effort.
edited to add:
If the b*start is dead, let's all hope he suffered a long, painful death. A quick death would have been a slap in the face to his countless victims.
[ edited by yeager on Mar 24, 2003 07:21 PM ]
posted on March 24, 2003 10:19:27 PM new
Bear, a couple former members of the Iraqi soccer team are now resident of the San Diego are (which happens to have among the largest Chaldean communities in the US). Over the weekend they told the stories of the abuses they suffered at the hands of Uday, including being between so bady on the soles of their feet they were unable to walk for weeks. Horrific.
[ edited by neonmania on Mar 24, 2003 10:23 PM ]
posted on March 24, 2003 11:21:42 PM new
Agreed! This guy is an inhuman monster who should be removed from the gene pool.
Like many regime-sanctioned torturers around the world.
Africa has them. Other continents and countries have them.
We don't go in to change those regimes, though. This is why so many of us are a bit suspicious of the extraordinary need for this particular war in this particular (oil-producing) country. Please allow us the freedom to be questioning without being called un-American.
