Key Saddam adviser 'gives himself up' - report

A key member of Saddam Hussein’s routed government today gave himself up to United States forces, German television said.

Lt Gen Amir al-Saadi, a special adviser who oversaw Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programmes, turned himself in peacefully to US forces in Baghdad, according to the ZDF broadcaster.

It said al-Saadi had asked it to send a television crew to witness his surrender for his own safety.

ZDF said Al-Saadi, who has a German wife, told its correspondent in an interview that he had no information on the fate of Saddam Hussein.

In a summary of the interview released in Berlin, he insisted Iraq had no chemical or biological weapons and that there had been no grounds for an attack on his country.

Explaining his decision to surrender, al-Saadi said he was a member of neither Saddam’s Ba’ath party nor the Iraqi secret services and felt no guilt, according to the report.