Date:12/04/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/04/12/stories/2003041204391400.htm

International

Saddam's half-brother 'dead'

Cairo April 11. The Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein's half-brother, Barzan al-Takriti, died today morning in a U.S. bombing of his farm, in the region of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, a family friend told AFP.

Mr. Barzan had been placed under house arrest by Mr. Hussein on March 5 in a villa of the Radwaniya presidential palace compound, in Jadriya, near Baghdad airport. Mr. Barzan was apppointed head of Iraq's intelligence 1983 and fell out with Mr. Hussein in 1988 because he objected to the marriage of one of the toppled President's daughters to Hussein Kamel Hassan, said the family friend.

Hussein Kamal is a member of the Takriti clan who became a leading figure of the regime, in charge of military industrialisation, before he defected in 1995 to Jordan.

He was killed in 1996 upon his return to Iraq.

— AFP