Saddam Hussein's second wife Samira Shahbandar is currently living in Beirut with her children and grandchildren from her first husband before Saddam, Time Magazine said on Monday, citing an unnamed former secretary of the deposed Iraqi leader as the source of its report.
A Saddam valet also denied recently published reports that Saddam had a son from Samira named Ali in addition to his two sons from his first wife Sajida, Uday and Qusay, who were killed by U.S. troops in Mosul last week. According to the report, the correct name of Saddam's son is Seif, 20.
The unnamed valet was quoted as saying Saddam's marriage contract with Samira stipulated that she would not have children from him although she maintained strong bonds with Saddam and had his ear, the magazine reported.
Sajida and her two daughters Raghad and Rana, and their seven children currently live in the sanctuary of a prominent tribal chieftain in Mosul, where Uday and Qusay killed by U.S. soldiers last Tuesday.
Time quoted a U.S. military official in Baghdad as saying the United States was not interested in any of Saddam's wives or his daughters because the U.S. has no reason to believe that they know anything about his current whereabouts. "If they come here, I will serve them tea," the official was quoted as saying.
Samira Shahbandar, a former flight attendant, was the toppled Iraqi leader's mistress in the late 1980s and that they later married. According to a 2002 report in the Times of London, Saddam may have married Samira in 1986 in a secret ceremony and bore him a son.
According to media reports, the relationship enraged Uday so much that he killed Saddam's personal valet in 1988 at a state dinner party for the wife of Egyptian leader Husni Mubarak. He blamed the valet for facilitating the relationship between Saddam and Samira.
Samira had been married previously to the general manager of Iraqi Airways, Nuriddin al-Saffi.
Her son and Saddam's stepson, Mohammad Saffi, was deported from the U.S. in 2001 for taking unauthorized flight training lessons. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
