Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, February 22, 2004
Red Cross makes first visit to detained Saddam
Officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) made their first visit to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Saturday in Iraq since he was captured by US forces in December, an ICRC spokeswoman said.
Officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) made their first visit to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Saturday in Iraq since he was captured by US forces in December, an ICRC spokeswoman said.
The two ICRC delegates, including a doctor, visited Saddam earlier Saturday at an undisclosed location in Iraq, CNN news network quoted the spokeswoman as saying.
The international body wanted to monitor the conditions of detention and treatment of the detained former Iraqi leader, she said.
The ICRC has been asking the US authorities to allow it to visit Saddam as a prisoner of war under the Geneva Conventions since the American forces caught the former president hiding in a hole in Dawr district near his hometown Tikrit, 160 km north of Baghdad, on Dec. 13.