The late Iraqi president Saddam Hussain was detained in one of his palaces for a period of time after his capture, said Khali Al Dulaimi, head of the Saddam Hussain Defence Team.

In an interview with Al Arabia.net, Al Dulaimi said Saddam was very close to the location where his statue was pulled down in Al Firdous Square in Baghdad on April 9, 2003. Al Dulaimi was asked by Al Arabia net whether Saddam actually saw his statue being pulled down.

Al Dulaimi laughed and said "not exactly".

"Saddam believed that more important things than a statue had collapsed in Iraq due to the US invasion, but all that did not affect Iraqis," he said.

Al Dulaimi asserted that Saddam was highly religious at the time, adding that he wrote down Saddam's memoirs as related by Saddam.

"I would print the memoirs, have Saddam sign them to be documented and move on. During the three-year detention, 300 pages were completed by Saddam, and I was the only advocate Saddam saw from 2004 until the beginning of 2006 when other lawyers joined in," Al Dulaimi said.

Al Dulaimi said that both CIA and FBI teams had interrogated Saddam for six months, when he was kept away from everyone. Saddam was only seen again when he was presented to judge Raid Jouhi.

According to Al Dulaimi, the Americans did not ask Saddam about weapons of mass destruction, instead they asked him about the 39 missiles which were used against Israel in the 1991 Gulf War.

Al Dulaimi also spoke about the mystery burnt Quran, which Saddam used to carry around.

He said that while Saddam was detained in one of his palaces, he would be escorted to the toilet blindfolded, and that one day, he was able to see from under the blindfold a burnt Quran, which was lying there with the rest of the burnt palace furniture.

Saddam asked the guards if he could keep the book and was given permission.

Al Dulaimi said that he highly doubts the French authority's story about finding 20 million euros (about Dh107 million) of Saddam's money in France, where the French government announced that it wants to return the money to the Iraqi government.

"The French story is a lie. Saddam did not have one penny abroad. The CIA knew this, and if they had found out otherwise, they would have blown the story out of proportion.

"When the US troops found 750 million Iraqi dinars (about Dh2,755 million) at the location of Saddam's arrest, they publicised that immediately," he added.