Biography
In 1983, she was married to Hussein Kamel al-Majid, a high-profile Iraqi defector who shared weapons secrets with UNSCOM, the CIA and MI6. Kamel was killed, along with his brother, by fellow-clan members who declared them traitors. Saddam had made it clear that although pardoned, they would lose all status and would not receive any protection. Raghad's sister, Rana Hussein was married to Hussein Kamel's brother Saddam Kamel who suffered the same fate.
Raghad bore five children to Hussein Kamel, three sons, Ali, Saddam and Wahej, and two daughters, Haris and Banan.
On July 2, 2006, the government of Iraq national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie declared that Raghad and her mother Sajida Talfah were wanted because they supported the insurgency in Iraq. The Jordanian Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit made a statement that "Raghad was under the royal family's protection" and "The presence of Mrs Raghad Saddam Hussein and her children in Jordan is motivated by humanitarian considerations, She is the guest of the Hashemite royal family (of King Abdullah II) and under its protection as a seeker of asylum" in accordance with Arab tradition. Her exact location however has not been disclosed.
On 30 December 2006 Saddam Hussein was executed in Iraq. Prior to the execution Raghad asked for her father's body to be temporarily buried in Yemen, until coalition forces are expelled from Iraq.
In August 2007 the international police agency Interpol announced that it had circulated an arrest warrant for Raghad on suspicions that she and her aides had been assisting the Insurgency in Iraq.
Read more about this topic: Raghad Hussein
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (18851967)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every mans life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (174095)