Saddam met bin Laden, says alleged mistress

3.00pm

WASHINGTON - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein met Osama bin Laden on two occasions and gave money to the al Qaeda leader in 1996, a woman who claims to be a long-time mistress of the Iraqi leader told ABC News.

Parisoula Lampsos, who claims to have been Saddam's mistress on and off for 30 years, told ABC she personally observed bin Laden in one of Saddam's palaces in the late 1980s. She said Saddam's oldest son, Uday, told her Saddam also met with bin Laden in 1996 and gave him money.

ABC News interviewed Lampsos, now 54 and hiding in Lebanon, for its Primetime Thursday news programme to air later this week. The US network released excerpts of the interview on Sunday.

Lampsos told ABC she saw Saddam on nearly a daily basis and provided details of his habits and personal life.

In the interview, Lampsos claimed Saddam tried to have Uday assassinated because he was worried his son would try to remove him from power. Uday was shot and paralysed in that attempt.

"I will kill him someday. Really, I mean I will kill him," Lampsos said was the threat Saddam made against his son.

When Uday became paralysed, Lampsos said Saddam told her, "I didn't want it this way. I wanted him to die. It was better for him."

Separately, Lampsos alleged that Saddam cried when the United States chased Iraqi forces out of Kuwait during the Gulf War.

"He said 'they took Kuwait from me'," she told ABC.

After the Gulf War, Saddam would move his chemical weapons around at night to hide them from UN inspectors.

"He laughed about them," she told the network.

Saddam enjoyed watching videos of his enemies being tortured, Lampsos alleged, and sometimes put on a cowboy hat during the viewings.

She said Saddam's favourite movie is The Godfather and his favourite song is Frank Sinatra's Strangers in the Night.

Saddam takes the anti-impotence drug Viagra, swims almost every day, uses a herbal relaxation mask to reduce wrinkles, dyes his hair and wears suits by Western designers including Pierre Cardin, Lampsos said.

She told the network Saddam has a security double that had his face surgically altered to look more like the Iraqi leader.

Lampsos said she was smuggled out of Iraq a year ago by a group opposed to Saddam. She said she believes Saddam will try to kill her for speaking out, and now wears a veil to disguise herself.

- REUTERS

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