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Iraq: U.N. can interview jailed scientist
March 25, 1998
Hindawi
Web posted at: 12:10 p.m. EST (1710 GMT)In this story:
BAGHDAD (CNN) -- Iraq will allow United Nations arms inspectors to meet a top Iraqi germ warfare scientist who was detained for trying to flee the country, an Iraqi source said on Wednesday.
"If the biological team wants to meet him, it can do so. The right of UNSCOM (the U.N. Special Commission charged with disarming Iraq) will not be affected by his detention," said the source, who asked not to be named.
"All the documents in his possession have been handed over to the Special Commission 10 days ago," the source added.
UNSCOM said on Tuesday Baghdad recently handed over a batch of documents said to have been taken from Nasser al-Hindawi, who pioneered Iraq's biological warfare program.
The source said U.N. arms inspector Scott Ritter, whom Iraq had accused of spying, "expressed appreciation for this step through the Special Commission."
The suspension of Ritter's inspections two months ago sparked a crisis over access to certain Iraqi locations, including eight "presidential sites."
More inspectors arrive
Additional U.N. inspectors arrive in Baghdad Wednesday The crisis was defused last month when U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan struck a deal with Baghdad guaranteeing U.N. arms inspectors full access to all Iraqi facilities.
A 58-member U.N. team arrived on Wednesday in Baghdad to prepare for the inspections, a U.N. spokeswoman said.
The group, led by UNSCOM deputy chief Charles Duelfer, an American, will be accompanied by 20 diplomats who arrived a day earlier.
It was up to the weapons experts to decide when they would start inspections.
Documents seized
Of the detained scientist, the Iraqi source said: "The documents seized from him were scientific reports he himself had taken part in preparing when he was working within the past biological program."
He said that visiting U.N. inspections teams had met with him "tens of times."
"Nasser Hindawi was arrested because he violated laws related to traveling abroad. And he is accused of keeping with him documents relating to Iraq's past biological program," the source said.
A letter to UNSCOM earlier this month from Iraqi Oil Minister Amer Mohammed Rashid did not say when Hindawi was arrested or to where he was planning to defect.
But UNSCOM was given a couple of hundred pages of documents said to have been in his possession.
Rashid is one of Iraq's top contacts with UNSCOM and was previously a senior official of Iraq's Military Industrialization Commission and was closely involved in the development of its weapons programs.
UNSCOM spokesman Ewen Buchanan said the documents included many that UNSCOM had previously known about. It was not known whether others contained any significant revelations.
Hindawi was involved in the establishment of Iraq's biological warfare program in the 1980s.
Reuters contributed to this report.
CNN/Time Impact:
Related stories:
- Butler reports progress as diplomats arrive in Iraq - March 24, 1998
- U.N. downplays Iraq's arrest of germ expert; U.S. uncertain - March 24, 1998
- U.N.'s Butler returns to Baghdad - March 22, 1998
Related sites:
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- Iraq Arrests Scientist Viewed as Father of Its Germ War Effort - New York Times, March 24, 1998
- United Nations
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