Uday Hussein: Too brutal even for Saddam

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http://www.iht.com/articles/103774.html

BAGHDAD Uday Hussein, the eldest son of Saddam Hussein, controlled propaganda in Iraq and allegedly oversaw the torture of athletes who failed to meet expectations.

The 39-year-old is No. 3 on the list of 55 most-wanted people from the former Iraqi regime - only Saddam and Uday's younger brother, Qusay, ranked higher.

As head of the paramilitary Fedayeen Saddam paramilitary unit, Uday helped his father eliminate opponents and exert iron-fisted control over Iraq's 24 million people. Uday was elected to Parliament in 1999 with a reported 99 percent of the vote, but he rarely attended parliament sessions.

Iraqi exiles say Uday murdered at will and tortured with zeal. But his tendency toward erratic brutality even exasperated Saddam, who temporarily banished Uday to Switzerland after the son killed one of his father's favorite bodyguards in 1988.

The bodyguard, a young man named Kamel Gegeo, arranged trysts for Saddam - notably with one woman who later became Saddam's second wife. Worried that his father's relationship with the woman could threaten his own position as heir, Uday allegedly beat Gegeo to death

Uday had once been a strong candidate to succeed his father, but he was badly wounded in 1996 in an assassination attempt by gunmen who opened fire as he drove his Porsche through Baghdad. The attack left Uday with a bullet in his spine that forced him to walk with a cane. His younger brother, Qusay, was instead groomed to succeed Saddam, worsening an already uneasy relations between the two brothers.

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