Two staff members of the international Red Cross have visited former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in US custody in Iraq, a spokeswoman said on Saturday.
The delegates, one of whom was a doctor, saw Saddam at an undisclosed location in Iraq earlier Saturday, said Nada Doumani, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
"We want to see whether he is getting enough food and water and also to check his health condition and to give him the possibility to write a message to his family, which he did," Doumani said, speaking from Amman, Jordan.
The ICRC is mandated to carry out visits to detainees under the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of warfare, but it will not speak out publicly on the conditions it finds although it will discuss its findings with the coalition forces holding Saddam.
Douumani said the ICRC would carry out a second visit to Saddam in due course, but she could not say when that would be.
"We will repeat our visits as long as the person is in detention," she said.
She declined to say how long Saturday's visit had been but said it was "long enough to get answers to the important questions."
Saddam's letter to his family is subject to censorship by the coalition forces before it is delivered. The Geneva Conventions rules require that it should be of a "uniquely family nature."
The US Defense Department determined last month that Saddam is entitled to the designation of "prisoner of war" because of his status as former commander in chief of Iraq's military. POW status under the Geneva Conventions grants Saddam certain rights, including ICRC visits and freedom from coercion of any kind during interrogations.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
RSS