BAGHDAD - An Iraqi prison chief and his deputy were under arrest on Sunday after Saddam HusseinÂ’s nephew, accused of funding the Sunni insurgency, escaped jail a day earlier, sparking a huge manhunt by police.Ayman Al Sabawi, the son of SaddamÂ’s half brother, Sabawi Ibrahim Al Tikriti, escaped Badoush prison near the northern city of Mosul on Saturday after the jailÂ’s night watch commander told colleagues he was transferring him to another prison.
Interior Ministry officials said they believed the commander had been bribed to help Sabawi escape. The night watch captain, whose family has also disappeared, convinced guards to free Sabawi after showing them a forged transfer form, they said.
Gee, an inside job. Whoda thunk it?
“The interior minister has ordered that a committee be formed to investigate (the escape) and the arrest of the head of the prison and his deputy,” ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Kareem Khalaf told state television. Mosul police said the two officials had been detained late on Saturday night and were being questioned on Sunday.
Khalaf said officials thwarted a previous attempt by Sabawi to escape about a month ago. He said that plot had been engineered by a group of Saddamist sympathisers calling themselves Aawda (the Return Group).
Sabawi, who was captured in a village near Mosul in 2004, had been serving a six-year sentence for funding the insurgency but was also wanted in connection with other crimes.