Sunday Telegraph September 27 1998

Last week The Telegraph exclusively revealed the defection of Iraq's chief sanctions-buster. Today, Sami Salih tells how he was made to watch Saddam's sons-in-law being gunned down. Report by Con Coughlin

It is midnight at Saddam Hussein's presidential palace in Baghdad and the crowd of terrified men, women and children gathered in the Zahour room think they are all about to die.

All of them have been dragged from their homes - most of them still in their night clothes - by Saddam's dreaded Amn al Khas, the Special Security Service. No explanation has been given for their arrest, other than that Saddam is demanding their immediate presence at the palace.

Among their number is Sami Salih, one of Saddam's most senior advisers and the mastermind behind Iraq's sanctions-busting operation to obtain arms for oil.

"At first we had no idea what was going on," Salih tells me when we meet at his new home in Belgium. Salih had been brought from his luxurious villa on the outskirts of Baghdad to the inner sanctum of Saddam's regime of terror.

"But then Saddam came into the room. He was drunk. He was red-eyed and wild. He was waving his gun around and screaming abuse. At that moment there was no one in that room who believed they would survive the night."

The reason for Saddam's rage quickly becomes apparent. Earlier in the day his two daughters and their husbands have returned home from Jordan, whence they had fled several months earlier.

The high-profile defections of Saddam's two sons-in-law, Hussein Kamel and Saddam Kamel Hassan (the two men are brothers), to Jordan in August 1995 provoked the biggest crisis of Saddam's 20-year reign. Hussein Kamel had been in charge of Iraq's illegal chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes, and his brother head of presidential security. They fled to Jordan with their wives after becoming involved in a feud with Saddam's son, Uday.

Between them they were able to provide Western security chiefs with a damning account of how Saddam's regime evades UN weapons inspection teams.

Despite the enormity of their treachery, Saddam nevertheless succeeded in luring his recalcitrant relatives to return to Baghdad. The defectors had quickly become disillusioned with their treatment by the West. They had expected to be swept off to America and feted. But because both men were deemed by the allies to have blood on their hands, they were obliged to remain in Jordan, where they found themselves under virtual house arrest.

In addition, their wives were homesick. By promising his daughters - on his word of honour as their father - that no harm could befall them or their families, Saddam was able to exploit their unhappiness and persuade the two couples to return.

The first indication Salih received that the defectors had returned to Iraq came on the afternoon of Feb 22, 1996 when he was leaving a business meeting at the presidential palace in Baghdad.

"I could hardly believe my eyes," Salih recalls. "They were being escorted to a Mercedes parked outside the palace. They both had a haunted look in their eyes. I tried to catch their attention. But they did not seem to see anyone. I could see that their epaulettes had been ripped from their uniforms. I started to get a very bad feeling."

Salih, as he explained in his account of life in modern Iraq in last week's Sunday Telegraph, had already been detained and interrogated by Saddam's security apparatchiks because of his professional relationship with Hussein Kamel. It was not an experience he wished to repeat. "Just seeing them back in Baghdad made me feel that trouble was brewing."

Once he had snared the defectors back to Baghdad, Saddam wasted no time showing he had no intention of honouring the pardons. At the border the Hassans were immediately separated from their wives and driven to the presidential palace. They were shown straight away to Saddam's office.

At Saddam's insistence, the brothers were forced to sign papers sanctioning their immediate divorce from their wives. Saddam then personally tore off their badges of rank - Hussein Kamel was a lieutenant-general, his brother a lieutenant-colonel, ripping their uniforms in the process. Saddam ordered them to stay at their father's villa at Assadiyah, on the outskirts of Baghdad, while he deliberated on their fate.

Later that same evening Saddam ordered commanders of his special security forces to round up relatives and associates of the two disgraced men. He told the security officers to bring them to the Zahour room - one of the palace's main reception areas for visiting dignitaries.

Salih, who had previously been a close business associate of Hussein Kamel before his defection to Jordan, was arrested at his villa on the outskirts of Baghdad, and driven to the presidential palace still wearing his pyjamas.

"From the moment Saddam came into the room it seemed he had only one thing on his mind - revenge," says Salih. "Saddam started to shout. He said Hussein Kamel and his brother had shamed everyone in Iraq, and in particular their family.

"Saddam said: 'You must remove this shame. You must get hold of them and cleanse this stain. Get rid of them'."

By this time some of the women were screaming for mercy, believing Saddam was about to shoot them. They were not sure whether Saddam was referring to them, or to the two defectors. The children were quietly sobbing, clinging to their parents for protection and comfort.

Saddam then gave orders to his commanders and staggered out of the room, his gun still in his hand. The occupants of the room were herded at gunpoint outside into the cold night air. There they were made to wait in the presidential compound.

At about 4am three 41-seater Toyota buses pulled into view. They drew up by the crowd, and the security guards forced everyone to take a seat. "No one told us where we were going. Many people were crying because they believed they were going to be executed," Salih told me.

The buses drove off and made their way through the suburbs of pre-dawn Baghdad. After about half-an-hour they came to a halt. "One of the guards climbed on to our bus. He told us we must all keep very quiet. Anyone who made a noise would be shot."

Everyone obeyed the guard's instructions and they sat quietly, not daring to speak a word to each other. It was not long before the sun started to rise and, as dawn broke over their surroundings, Salih, who had worked with Hussein Kamel for many years, recognised the location.

The coaches had been parked a few hundred yards from Hussein Kamel's family villa. As his eyes became more familiar with the neighbourhood, Salih could see that the adjoining houses had been evacuated and were now empty.

All around Hussein Kamel's villa he could make out the distinctive silhouettes of Iraqi special forces units. They were dressed in olive green combat gear; some of them had face masks. All of them were heavily armed. Some distance away Salih could see a top-of-the-range silver Mercedes, which he knew belonged to Uday Hussein, the Iraqi leader's son. Standing at the side of the car was a figure with a video camera, who appeared to be filming the activity.

A calm settled over the whole area "like the lull before a storm", says Salih, and the only sound he could hear were the muffled sobs of the women and children held captive on the bus.

The silence was eventually broken when a bullet-proof Mercedes pulled up in front of the Hassan villa. One of the occupants, using a loudhailer, called out to those inside the house: "You must surrender. You are surrounded. You are not in danger."

The occupants of the villa responded with a burst of automatic gunfire directed at the car, which sped off. Within seconds groups of special forces unleashed a hail of gunfire at the villa. Windows were smashed and the air was filled with pieces of flying masonry.

Inside the buses, which had a grandstand view of the unfolding gun battle, the women and children were screaming with terror. Salih and the other men helped to get them lying on the floor.

"We were totally exposed," says Salih. "The buses offered no protection against the bullets. And everyone was convinced that we were all going to be massacred at any minute."

Salih managed to keep an eye on what was happening at the villa. Apart from the intermittent exchanges of fire, he saw that every detail of the assault on the villa was being recorded on video by a cameraman dressed in special forces battle fatigues.

"The shooting lasted for several hours. There was a burst of activity, and then a lull, as the attacking forces worked out what they were going to do next.

"This was followed by a fresh attack being launched from a different vantage point. All the attacks were repelled with fierce gunfire from inside the villa," he says.

As the hours passed, the defenders were picked off, one by one. The defectors' father was the first to die. Then Saddam Kamel, the former head of presidential security, was killed. A sister of the brothers and her son were shot in another round of shooting. Finally the only people inside were Hussein Kamel and a few bodyguards.

From the bus, Salih saw Uday emerge from his Mercedes, which was parked a safe distance from the fighting. Uday and his brother Qusay were under instructions from their father not to become directly involved, but Uday could not resist supervising the operations. He issued orders to the special forces commanders, and a few minutes later Salih saw soldiers move into position carrying rocket-propelled grenades.

"Two rockets were fired at the main doors of the villa, and they were destroyed. The furnishings inside the villa caught fire. The whole place was quickly filled with smoke. Then, amidst all this confusion, a group of Uday's soldiers ran into the villa," says Salih.

Later he was told that three of Uday's men found Hussein Kamel cornered in an upstairs room. "Hussein Kamel shot the first man five times in the stomach. But one of the others managed to return fire, hitting Hussein Kamel in the shoulder. As he fell to the ground, he begged for mercy."

The special forces brought Hussein Kamel out of the villa. "He was wearing a white shirt and blue trousers," says Salih. "There was a big red patch on his left side where he had been shot."

By now all the shooting had stopped, and the terrified witnesses on the three buses were watching through the windows to see what happened next. Even the children were quiet.

The soldiers led Hussein to the front of the house next door. Uday and his entourage were there, as was the cameraman.

"Hussein Kamel was thrown on to the ground," says Salih. "A group of soldiers gathered around him. Uday was there, egging them on. One of the commanders said to Hussein Kamel: 'You have caused dishonour to your country and your family'.

"He put his foot on Hussein Kamel's throat, pinning him to the ground so that he could not move.

"He then pulled out his pistol, placed it against Hussein Kamel's head, and pulled the trigger, killing him instantly. The soldiers standing around the body gave a loud cheer. Uday pushed through them. When he reached the body he spat at his former brother-in-law. Then we walked away, got into his car and drove off."

The cameraman, who had filmed the whole grisly episode, also took his leave. He had to make a copy of the day's events on videotape. Later this would be handed to Saddam Hussein so that the Iraqi dictator could see for himself that his orders had been obeyed.

The remaining soldiers went into the burnt-out villa and brought out the other bodies. The two soldiers who had been killed in the shoot-out were placed on a truck and driven off to Baghdad, where they would be buried with full military honours.

The bodies of the defectors, their father, sister and nephew were loaded on to a garbage truck and taken off, never to be seen again. "This was Saddam's way of showing their unworthiness," says Salih.

Finally, one of the special forces commanders walked over to the three buses, which had remained in the same position throughout the day. By now the occupants were too drained to be paying much attention.

"We hope you enjoyed the show," said the commander in a loud, clear voice. "I want this to be a lesson to all of you who knew these people. Iraqi is not a country for traitors. No one betrays the Iraqi people and lives."

He then gave orders to the drivers to take the buses back into Baghdad. "We were all free to go home and back to work," says Salih. "They knew that after what we had seen that day, none of us would ever again entertain thoughts of treachery."