Swedish police said on Friday they had received information that Iraq’s former information minister Mohammed Said as-Sahhaf, dubbed ”Comical Ali”, was implicated in the unresolved 1985 murder of a defected Iraqi agent in Stockholm.
Sahhaf became ambassador to Sweden just after the brutal killing of Majid Husain, who had sought asylum in the Scandinavian country and planned to tell all about Saddam Hussein’s security apparatus and agents in Europe, according to Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet.
”We received a tip-off on Monday that we should question him,” Stockholm police chief investigator Bo Isaksson said.
”We are going to look into the matter, but do not consider this to be a matter of any urgency,” he said.
Husain disappeared in January 1985 and his body was found chopped in 54 pieces and stuffed in two suitcases left in a churchyard outside Stockholm two months later.
According to Svenska Dagbladet, Swedish police have long suspected two men and a woman of carrying out the murder for the Iraqi regime. The paper identified the woman as Jamila Mustafa El-Chafej.
Police were however never able to make any progress in the case as long as Saddam Hussein remained in power, the paper said.
Isaksson said a journalist whom he refused to identify had on Monday pressed charges against Sahhaf, but said police viewed the complaint as a tip-off.
”The charges against Sahhaf were not specified. So we view this as more of a lead,” he said, adding that the journalist had said that Sahhaf ”should be questioned in the case”.
Isaksson said a warrant was issued via Interpol in 1985 for the arrest of one person in connection with the murder. While he would not identify that person, he said it was not Sahhaf. Svenska Dagbladet said the arrest warrant was for Jamila Mustafa El-Chafej.
Isaksson said the journalist had also pressed charges against Sahhaf in connection with the murder of a 27-year-old Kurd found stabbed and strangled in Stockholm in 1985.
Sahhaf gained worldwide fame during the US-led war on Iraq for his upbeat assessments of the military situation on the eve of the collapse of the regime that were in stark contrast with developments on the ground. – Sapa-AFP