December 18, 2005

SADDAM HUSSEIN’S lawyer has said that the former Iraqi dictator claims that he was gassed while hiding in his bolthole in an attempt to evade the US troops who captured him two years ago.

Saddam allegedly told Ramsay Clarke, 78, a former US Attorney-General who is one of the lawyers representing him: "I came out of the house where I was hiding by this hole. I went through the trapdoor. I went down the hole, through the tunnel, then lost consciousness."

Mr Clarke told The Sun: "Saddam thinks he was gassed in the tunnel. He told us he spent maybe minutes in this tunnel, not hours or days.

"When he started to get out there were soldiers around that area. There was supposed to be a motorcycle there. It was gone. Saddam knew the person who owned the house wasn’t there. He knew he had been betrayed.Probably American soldiers did not discover the hole. They were told about it."

Saddam told his lawyer that he had hoped to emerge unnoticed in nearby bushes and then escape on the motorcycle. "I believe I was betrayed. I have been set up," he added.

He is not paying his legal team. Mr Clarke said: "Saddam doesn’t have any money and even if he did I wouldn’t accept it." He added that Saddam told him: "I don’t mind being killed. There will always be another Saddam."