Deposed dictator ‘is being treated like a king’ in American custody

SADDAM HUSSEIN is living “like a king” in US military custody, an adviser to the Iraqi interim prime minister claims.

George Sada, an air force officer under Saddam, told the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas that the former Iraqi dictator’s “house was centrally air conditioned” and he was reading newspapers and watching television.

“They prepare two kinds of food for him every day, Eastern and Western ... and he eats what he chooses,” Mr Sada said in Baghdad.

Saddam’s menu includes Qouzi, which is sheep stuffed with rice, and Masqouf, Iraqi-style grilled fish, Mr Sada said, adding that the former dictator is living “like any king, better than the way he lived at the Republican Palace.”

Mr Sada declined to elaborate on where in Iraq Saddam was being held, but he has been in US custody since December 13 when he was captured by US troops in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit.

Saddam faces trial on at least seven charges, including killing rival politicians, gassing the Kurds in 1988, invading Kuwait in 1990 and suppressing Kurdish and Shi’ite uprisings in 1991. No date for the trial has been announced.