Saddam's daughters 'sought asylum in Europe

Saddam Hussein’s daughters applied for asylum in Germany and the United Arab Emirates as well as in Britain, it was claimed tonight.

The former body double of the deposed Iraqi president’s son Uday said a cousin of the daughters contacted him to say he was seeking the applications for Raghad, 35, and 33-year-old Rana after they were thrown out of their palaces.

But he said he believed their bid to move to the United Kingdom – which was reported at the weekend – would be the most successful.

Speaking from his Dublin home, 39-year-old, Latif Yahia said: “Their cousin is a friend of mine.

Mr Yahia is in Ireland awaiting a visa to rejoin his family in England.

“About a month ago he called me and said they were in bits and that he wanted to take them out.

“So he applied to the UK, the United Arab Emirates and Germany.”

He said he thought the United Arab Emirates bid had failed.

“I think they will be most welcome in the UK,” he said. “I think they will be successful.

“If you have money you are welcome in the UK.”

He said he did not know the outcome of either the German or the British applications.

Last weekend the sisters’ cousin, London-based exile Izzi-Din Mohammed Hassan al-Majid, told an Arab newspaper he was arranging the application for asylum.

He said the pair were currently living in humble Baghdad homes after being thrown out of their palaces.

Mr al-Majid said the two women were living with their nine children in two rooms of a family’s house, and were forced to wash their own clothes and cook their own food.

The two women’s husbands were both assassinated by Saddam in 1996 after they defected to Jordan, then were lured back to Iraq by a promise that they would not be punished.

Neither they nor Mr al-Majid had any idea of the whereabouts of Saddam or his sons Uday and Qusay – top of the Allies’ most-wanted list – he said.

Tonight Mr Yahia said Uday, Saddam’s elder son, was in hiding in Baghdad 11 days ago and had considered giving himself up to US forces.

He said a mutual friend gave him the information in a satellite telephone conversation 10 days ago.

The friend told him Uday and his bodyguards had stayed at his house in Baghdad for two nights.

Mr Yahia said that Uday, who was left partially paralysed after a failed attempt to kill him in 1996, was in desperate need of medication.

“He was in bits,” he said.

“One minute he was laughing hysterically, the next he was crying.

“He needs his medication.”

He has written extensively of his time with Uday.

His autobiography, The Devil’s Double, is due out on Thursday.