BBC Tuesday, 3 July, 2001, 20:32 GMT 21:32 UK

Iraqi diplomats 'defect to US'

One and possibly two high-ranking diplomats serving at the United Nations in New York are reported to have requested asylum in the United States.

Some reports name one as the deputy ambassador, Mohammed al-Humaidi.

There has been no confirmation so far, either from the US or Iraqi authorities.

An Iraqi spokesman at the UN said he knew only that three Iraqi diplomats were due to return home at the end of last month. They were given several weeks to make the necessary arrangements.

Iraq's ambassador at the UN could not confirm the news.

"If someone wants to stay, what can we do?" Mohammed al-Douri told the Associated Press.

According to a source in the New York police, the case is now in the hands of the US federal authorities.

It was passed to them after a diplomat, accompanied by his wife and at least one child, walked into a Manhattan police station on Friday, the source told AP, which has been unable to obtain official US comment.

Senior defections

The most notable recent defections of high-level Iraqis were in August 1995 when President Saddam Hussein's two sons-in-law fled to neighbouring Jordan.

Most worryingly for the Baghdad authorities, one of them, Hussein Kamil Hasan al-Majid, was a senior defence official, privy to top secret information.

Six months later the two defectors were lured back to Iraq after being promised pardons, but were killed in an execution in which the president's eldest son, Uday, personally took part.

Three years later, the president's half-brother, Barzan Tikriti, returned to Baghdad from his post as head of Iraq's mission at the UN in Geneva.

Rumours of his defection had circulated for months.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Answers

Boston.com

Two senior Iraqi diplomats, including deputy U.N. ambassador, request asylum in United States

By Dafna Linzer, Associated Press, 7/3/2001 18:53

UNITED NATIONS (AP) Iraq's deputy U.N. ambassador and another top envoy requested asylum for themselves and their families in a bid to remain in the United States, diplomatic and police sources confirmed Tuesday.

Well-placed diplomats said that both men had personal reasons for wanting to stay and noted that an asylum request was the only way to remain in the United States once their terms at the U.N. mission were up.

Police sources said Mohammed al-Humaimidi, the deputy ambassador, walked into a police station alone on Friday, identified himself and requested political asylum.

Senior diplomatic sources said Fela Hesan al-Rubaie, a senior counselor and the No. 4 at the mission, had also made an asylum request. The diplomatic and police sources all spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Iraqi diplomats were two of three or four diplomats at the Iraqi mission who were scheduled to return home to Iraq this month, according to diplomats.

An Iraqi envoy who defected earlier said the asylum requests were understandable.

''Many Iraqis officials, if they were given the chance, would take refuge in another country,'' said Safa al-Falaki, a former Iraqi ambassador to the Netherlands who resigned in 1992 and later received asylum.

Iraqi officials ''are all against the regime in their hearts. Whoever stays is either doing so for personal benefit, out of fear of (the regime's) terror, or has limited options of where to go,'' al-Falaki said in a telephone interview from his home in the Netherlands.

Al-Rubaie disappeared two weeks ago, after he and his family failed to show up for a flight out of the United States, diplomats said.

Calls to his New York City home went unanswered Tuesday. The doorman at the luxury Manhattan apartment building where al-Rubaie lived said the family moved out two weeks ago. The apartment lease, which expires at the end of the month, is paid by the Iraqi mission, according to the doorman, who declined to give his name.

As senior diplomats, both men seeking asylum would have detailed knowledge of Saddam Hussein's foreign policy objectives.

Another diplomat said that as many as three Iraqis apparently made asylum requests. But a police source could only confirm one asylum request and said that case was turned over Friday to state department officials.

Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed al-Douri said that three or four career diplomats were supposed to return to Iraq but he did not know if they had. Al-Douri said that he had seen one of the diplomats last week and another this week.

''If someone wants to stay, what can we do?'' he told The Associated Press. Al-Douri would not directly confirm or deny whether anyone in the mission had defected.

''I just wonder how they're staffing the Iraqi mission,'' quipped acting U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham, who added that he didn't know anything about the defections.

There was no official confirmation from U.S. authorities.

New York City police officials referred all calls to the U.S. State Department, where spokesman Richard Boucher said ''we don't discuss alleged asylum requests.''

Officials at the New York district office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and at the Federal Bureau of Investigation would not confirm or deny the report.

Previous defections by Iraqi government officials have caused considerable embarrassment to the Baghdad government.

An Iraqi nuclear physicist defected to the United States in 1994.

A year later, Saddam Hussein's sons-in-law defected from Iraq to Jordan. The brothers, both married to Saddam's daughters, were debriefed by Western intelligence officials and reportedly disclosed secrets of Iraq's military and weapons programs. However, they failed to gain the trust of Iraqi exiles and returned to Baghdad six months later with their families. They were killed within hours of their arrival.

During the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, the weightlifter who carried the Iraqi flag in the opening ceremony sneaked out of the Olympic village, hopped into a waiting car and sped off to begin a new life in the United States.

In 1999, Saddam Hussein granted amnesty to Iraqis who left the country illegally after the 1991 Gulf War, apparently hoping to lure back well-educated citizens and weaken the opposition parties in exile, which have funded and taken care of many Iraqi defectors.

The United States is actively supplying Saddam's political foes with military training and field equipment, though not weapons. In February, the Bush administration cleared $4 million to help dissidents opposed to Saddam build a legal case against him.

After 11 years of U.N. sanctions imposed following Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, life for millions in Iraq has become exceedingly difficult.

Saddam has blamed the poor quality of life in Iraq on the sanctions; the United States says he has ignored citizens while spending money on the military and on palaces for himself.

The United Nations has instituted a humanitarian program to help Iraqi civilians with basic food and medicine, but Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said it is not enough to halt the suffering.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Those two sons-in-law who returned certainly qualify for Darwin Awards.

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001