Prison chief held after Saddam's nephew escape

Baghdad: An Iraqi prison chief and his deputy were under arrest on Sunday after Saddam Hussain's nephew, accused of funding the Sunni insurgency, escaped jail a day earlier, sparking a huge manhunt by police.

Ayman Al Sabawi, the son of Saddam's half brother, Sabawi Ibrahim Al Tikriti, escaped Badoush prison near the northern city of Mosul on Saturday after the jail's night watch commander told colleagues he was transferring him to another prison.

Interior Ministry officials said they believed the commander had been bribed to help Sabawi escape. The night watch captain, whose family has also disappeared, convinced guards to free Sabawi after showing them a forged transfer form, they said.

"The interior minister has ordered that a committee be formed to investigate (the escape) and the arrest of the head of the prison and his deputy," ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Kareem Khalaf told state television.

Mosul police said the two officials had been detained late on Saturday night and were being questioned on Sunday.

Khalaf said officials thwarted a previous attempt by Sabawi to escape about a month ago. He said that plot had been engineered by a group of Saddamist sympathisers calling themselves Aawda (the Return Group).

Mosul police said 20 police vehicles had been deployed around the city to search for Sabawi, while around 40 vehicles were patrolling Mosul itself.

Sabawi's father was head of the Iraqi secret service in 1991 and head of the General Security Directorate from 1991 to 1996.

Sabawi was arrested in May 2005 in Tikrit and sentenced to 15 years in prison for illegally crossing the border from Syria.

He was later sentenced to life in prison for funding Iraq's insurgency, possession of illegal weapons and for bomb-making.

He "played a particularly active role in sustaining the terrorism by providing financial support, weapons and explosives to terrorist groups," Iraq's government said.