Looters plunder home of Saddam's playboy son Uday

11.45am

BAGHDAD - Iraqi looters carted off bottles of wine and whisky, guns and paintings of half-naked women on Thursday from the luxury home of Uday, the playboy son of Saddam Hussein.

Reuters cameraman Khdayer Majid filmed the looters also taking objects from Uday's yacht, moored in a private marina on the grounds of the house, and removing some of the white Arabian horses he kept.

The looters destroyed much of what they could not carry away, including golden taps and chandeliers.

"You could find the seven wonders of the world in there because Uday thought he was God," said Majid, who personally knew Uday when Saddam's son ran Iraq's Olympic Committee.

Reuters correspondent Khaled Yacoub Oweis said that barely a few days ago, before US tanks rolled into Baghdad to end Saddam's rule, Iraqis were too scared even to look at the house by the Tigris river because of Uday's reputation for cruelty.

Gangs of looters, many of them armed, have roamed the streets of Baghdad since Saddam's power crumbled, ransacking the homes of his inner circle as well as offices and the homes of ordinary Iraqis.

The whereabouts of Saddam, his two sons and his associates remains a mystery. They all went to ground before the fall of Baghdad.

Saddam's eldest son, Uday was heir apparent until a 1996 shooting placed a question mark over his authority within the Iraqi leader's inner circle.

Volatile, with a reputation for violence and a penchant for flamboyant clothes and fast cars, he was badly wounded in the shooting attack.

His influence went beyond his modest official titles as chairman of the Iraqi Olympic Committee and head of the Iraqi Football Association.

Uday, 39, owned Iraq's most influential newspaper, Babel, and he ran the popular Shebab television network.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq war