Jordan offers asylum to Saddam's daughters

AMMAN - Jordan's King Abdullah has offered asylum to two daughters of toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on humanitarian grounds after they arrived safely from Baghdad on Thursday, officials said.

Information Minister Nabil al-Sharif told Reuters the king issued an order admitting Saddam's daughters, the eldest Raghd, 36, and Rana, 34, on their arrival in Jordan.

"They arrived this evening and they are his Majesty's guests for purely humanitarian reasons," Sharif added.

The minister declined to give details on the circumstances of the two daughters' arrival but said they were accompanied by their nine children.

Sharif said they were not planning any move elsewhere.

"I have no knowledge they are heading to any other destination," he said.

Their late husbands were brothers Lieutenant General Hussein Kamel and Saddam Kamel who defected to Jordan in 1995 and announced plans to work to overthrow Saddam. Hussein Kamel headed Iraq's nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programmes for 10 years.

The brothers were executed when they returned to Baghdad in 1996, accused by Saddam's government of giving information about Iraq's weapons to the West.

Since the end of the US led war in April, the two daughters have been living in seclusion and hiding with their mother Sajida, under close tribal protection, Iraqi exile sources in Amman said.

A Jordanian cabinet minister who requested anonymity said the daughters arrived from Baghdad on Thursday and would be free to stay in Amman or leave to any country of their choice.

A palace official emphasised the move by the pro-Western monarch was a traditional gesture of Arab hospitality.

Iraqi exiled sources in Amman said Raghd and Rana had sought refuge without success in Britain and the United Arab Emirates in recent weeks.

Some of Iraq's former ruling Baath leaders' relatives have found refuge in Amman in recent months, including the family of former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, officials privately say.

Saddam's third and favoured daughter Hala is still in Iraq. Her husband General Jamal Mustafa Tikriti was arrested following the fall of Baghdad last April.

The whereabouts of Saddam's first wife in Iraq is unknown.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq