World

Syria Nabs Saddam's Half-Brother

February 28, 2005 / 5:41 AM EST / CBS/AP

Syrian authorities captured Saddam Hussein's half brother and 29 other officials of the deposed dictator's Baath Party and handed them over to Iraq in an apparent goodwill gesture, Iraqi officials say.

Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, a former Saddam adviser suspected of financing insurgents after U.S. troops ousted the former dictator, was captured in Hasakah in northeastern Syria near the Iraqi border, two senior Iraqi officials told The Associated Press.

Al-Hassan was detained early Sunday, says Capt. Ahmed Ismael, an intelligence officer in the Interior Ministry.

He was handed over to Iraqi authorities along with 29 other members of Saddam's collapsed Baath Party, whose Syrian branch has been in power in Damascus since 1963, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

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A U.S. Marine was killed Saturday during military operations in central Babil province. In Hammam Alil, 240 miles north of Baghdad, a bomb exploded inside the police headquarters, killing five people. In Baghdad, gunmen attacked police heading to work in the western Amiriyah district, killing two of them. Baghdad police found the body of an Iraqi woman, dressed in traditional black, with a sign that said "spy" pinned to her chest. In Latifiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, Iraqi troops found four beheaded corpses on a farm.

Syria has come under intense scrutiny following the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut, with many in Lebanon blaming Damascus and Beirut's pro-Syrian government for the killing.

The United States and France also called on Damascus to withdraw 15,000 Syrian troops from Lebanon following Hariri's death.

Washington has long accused Syria of harboring and aiding former members of Saddam's toppled Baathist regime suspected of involvement in the deadly insurgency against U.S.-led forces in Iraq.

During recent months, U.S. officials have, however, noted improvements by Syria in doing more to safeguard its long, porous border with Iraq to crack down on insurgents crossing into Iraq.

Damascus has denied such claims, but this has done little to convince U.S. authorities of Syrian involvement — or at least knowledge — in supporting the Iraqi insurgency, which has powered by Iraqi nationalists opposed to foreign occupation, once powerful Baathists and Islamic Jihadists.

"The capture appeared to be a goodwill gesture by the Syrians to show that they are cooperating," one official told the AP.

A third Iraqi official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said Syrian security forces expelled al-Hassan from Syria into Iraq after he and a group of supporters had earlier tried to cross the Syrian border into Lebanon and Jordan.

Al-Hassan was believed to have been living in Aleppo, the northern Syrian city and the country's second-largest after the capital, Damascus.

Al-Hassan is No. 36 on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis released by U.S. authorities after troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, and one of only 12 remaining at large. He is also suspected of financing insurgents in the post-Saddam era, and Washington had put a $1 million bounty on his head.

A statement released earlier by the Iraqi government said al-Hassan had "killed and tortured Iraqi people." It also said he had "participated effectively in planning, supervising, and carrying out many terrorist acts in Iraq."

Allawi's spokesman, al-Naqib, said al-Hassan will "face trial for the crimes he committed against the Iraqi people," but did not say when.

Saddam's two other half brothers, Barzan and Watban, were captured in April 2003 and are expected to stand trial along with Saddam at the Iraqi Special Tribunal. Both appeared before the special court in Baghdad with Saddam and a handful of others to hear preliminary accusations against them.

It was also not immediately known whether U.S. troops had played any role in the arrest. In Baghdad, the U.S. military had no immediate comment.

On Dec. 28, Qassem Dawoud, Iraq's national security adviser, claimed that al-Hassan had taken refuge in Syria sometime after the U.S. invasion in 2003, according to remarks published in Kuwait's Al-Rai Al-Aam daily. From there, he was supporting insurgents in Iraq, Dawoud said.

Under Saddam, al-Hassan served as head of the feared General Security Directorate, which was responsible for internal security, especially cracking down on political parties that opposed Saddam. Al-Hassan had been accused of torturing and killing political opponents when was head of the body.

Al-Hassan later served as head of Saddam's brutal intelligence service, which was also charged with spying on Iraqi exiles opposed to his powerful half-brother's regime.

During the seven-month Iraqi occupation of Kuwait that began in 1990, al-Hassan was in charge of security in the captured oil-rich state. Kuwaitis have accused him of massive human rights violations through torturing and killing local resistance fighters and others considered as being opposed to the Iraqi regime.

He later became a presidential adviser, the last post he held in the former regime.

Besides the list of the 55 most wanted, al-Hassan is among the 29 most-wanted supporters of insurgent groups in Iraq, according to U.S. Central Command.