May 24, 2006

Saddam Hussein's cousin

My newspaper (trouw.nl) just reported that a cousin of Saddam Hussein was arrested today in Beirut. Here’s the report in English. "The arrest of the criminal Bashar Sabawi al-Tikriti represent a successful intelligence operation which will continue chasing the former regime elements on the run and bring them back to Iraq to face fair trials," the announcement of the Iraqi government read. But when you Google the guy - Bashar Sabawi Ibrahim Hasan Al-Tikriti -, it turns out that the US State Department already reported in June of 2005 that he had a residence in Beirut (and Damascus as well). Now that intelligence operation was either not successful until one year later, or the intelligence they had was not used intelligently. He had his assets frozen by the US State Department way back in 2005. I’m not quite sure what that means. That you can’t get access to the money on your US account? I doubt he would put his money on an American bank to begin with. The guy is younger than I am, born in 1970. I wonder if we go to the same beach. So he gets arrested just when the summer is about to begin. What a sucker.

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