Saddam's deputy Ramadan captured in northern Iraq

BAGHDAD - Taha Yassin Ramadan, Saddam Hussein's former vice president, has been captured by US Kurdish allies in northern Iraq, US and Kurdish officials said.

"He was detained in Mosul as a result of co-operation between the political parties and residents," Adel Murad of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) told Reuters in Baghdad.

In Washington, a Pentagon spokeswoman confirmed that Ramadan had been captured and handed over to US-led forces, who invaded Iraq in March and toppled Saddam.

The PUK is one of two main Kurdish parties in northern Iraq which fought alongside US forces in the war in Iraq.

Ramadan was No 20 and the 10 of diamonds in a deck of cards issued to US troops hunting the 55 most wanted members of Saddam's administration.

"He was captured by the PUK in Mosul last night and he is being transferred to Sulaimaniya. We are waiting for more details," said London-based PUK spokesman Farko Mahmoud.

Ramadan, who is in his 60s and originally from the Mosul region, was one of the most hawkish members of Saddam's inner circle and one of the only surviving plotters of the 1968 coup that brought the Baath Party to power.

His capture will fuel speculation that US forces may be closing in on Saddam himself.

The ousted dictator's sons Uday and Qusay were cornered in Mosul last month and killed by US troops after they were betrayed by an Iraqi informer.

Mosul, with its rich mixture of Kurds and Arabs, Muslims and Christians, is north of Saddam's Sunni Muslim heartlands around his hometown of Tikrit, where much of the search for his inner circle has been focused.

Ramadan is alleged to have been involved in crimes against humanity for his role in suppressing Kurdish rebellion in the north in the 1980s and against the Shi'ite revolt in southern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War.

A man of blunt words, he told Saudi Arabia's foreign minister to "go to hell" during the US invasion when the minister suggested that Saddam should step down.

"You loser," he said of Prince Saud al-Faisal at a Baghdad news conference. "You are a minion and a lackey."

- REUTERS


Herald Feature: Iraq