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Syria Sheltering Former Iraqi Vice President

(Telegraph-UK) - Damien Mcelroy Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a former vice-president of Iraq and one of Saddam Hussein's closest henchmen, is being sheltered at a military base near the airport in the Syrian capital Damascus, according to a Gulf diplomat. He is among thousands of regime figures who are believed to have slipped into Syria. The diplomat said: "A substantial sum of money was paid to cross the border on an unmarked route used by shepherds." While the French government has denied U.S. charges that France provided passports to fleeing Iraqi officials, a Syrian employee of the French embassy in Damascus claimed that eight Iraqi officials from the oil and finance ministries had been given passports in the middle of April. Roni Ahmed, a self-styled people smuggler who used to help Iraqi asylum-seekers make their way to Europe, claims to have made up dozens of Swedish passports, charging £2,800 for each, and arranged for Iraqis to travel to Stockholm. "You could tell some of them were very important. I'm Iraqi and my family has had to rely on food rations for 10 years, but these guys were fat," Ahmad said. "Some were travelling overland through Russia and were worrying about getting robbed on the way."
2003-05-12 00:00:00
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