Daughters of Saddam deny asylum bid

The eldest daughter of Saddam Hussain has broken her silence to tell The Sunday Telegraph that she and her sister have no plans to seek asylum in Britain, as it would not be "appropriate".

Raghad Saddam Hussain, who remains in hiding in Iraq with her sister Rana, said they might, however, move to Britain if they were granted visas. Last week their cousin, Izzi Din Hassan Al Majid, who lives in exile in Leeds, told a newspaper that the sisters wanted to apply for asylum in Britain.

Making her first comments to the Western media, Raghad explained that their plans had been misunderstood. "We do not want to apply for asylum as that would not be appropriate for us," she said. "But we would like to visit Britain and possibly live there if we were granted visas."

Raghad and Rana had been estranged from their father since their husbands were murdered on Saddam's orders in 1996, after they returned from temporary exile in Jordan.

Nonetheless, they fear that they could be targeted in reprisal attacks following the overthrow of Saddam's regime. Too terrified to reveal her location, Raghad spoke to the The Sunday Telegraph through a family intermediary, who arranged for written questions to be delivered to her.

He said that it would be "awkward" for Saddam's daughters to submit themselves to the asylum process because of their previous stature in Iraq.

"They are anxious about their future and worry what will happen in the coming days and weeks," he said. Asked about their lives now that the regime has fallen, Raghad, 35, replied simply: "We are both well and in good health and so are our children."

She revealed that she and Rana, 33, were living together with their nine children but they were not with their mother, Sajida, who was Saddam's first wife.

The two women are not implicated in the worst excesses of the regime, even though their husbands were among Saddam's closest associates. Raghad's husband, Hussain Kamel Hassan, was a Saddam loyalist who played a prominent role in quashing the Shiite rebellion following the 1991 Gulf war.

Rana was married to Kamel's brother Saddam. The brothers fled to Jordan with their wives following a bitter and prolonged rivalry with Saddam's son, Uday. Both were killed when they returned to Iraq.

© The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2003