Saddam had 'gentle side', says translator

A man who worked as Saddam Hussein’s translator for 15 years defended his former boss today as “gentle,” and suggested the strongman was a victim of biased reporting.

Saman Abdul Majid, who was in Paris to promote a book he wrote about Saddam, said the fugitive dictator had been maligned by depictions of him as murderous tyrant.

“I have seen another side of Saddam Hussein,” Majid said, explaining that in meetings with foreign dignitaries or journalists, Saddam was “gentle and friendly … and very concerned that everyone was comfortable and well-served”.

Majid, who now lives in Qatar and works for the al-Jazeera TV network, said he was only involved in straight translating for Saddam and had nothing to do with policy. He said he last saw the former Iraqi leader before the US-led invasion.

He said he had no direct knowledge of the countless killings, assassinations and other human rights abuses committed by Saddam’s ruthless security agents, though he had heard accounts of abuses from other Iraqis.

Majid dismissed the comparison of Saddam to Adolf Hitler, and then suggested that the German dictator also might have been unfairly judged.

“I don’t know if the history of Hitler ought to be rewritten,” Majid told reporters. “You might talk to a lot of Germans who don’t think Hitler was as bad as that.”