December 17, 2003	Wednesday	Shawwal 22, 1424

DUBAI, Dec 16: Saddam Hussein must have been drugged before he was captured by US forces, the ousted dictator’s eldest daughter, Raghad, told Al-Arabiya television on Tuesday.

“How do you believe they can capture him if they didn’t drug him? I don’t doubt it, I’m sure that they couldn’t (have captured him otherwise),” she said, speaking by telephone from Jordan, where she was granted asylum.

“Saddam Hussein is still my father. Every honourable person, and every person who knows him or knew him ... knows that the person on the television was a drugged Saddam Hussein,” she said.

“The truth is that I am proud that this person is my father,” Raghad said of the 66-year-old former Iraqi president who was captured by US troops late Saturday.

“We all know the intention of the way he was displayed, where is the democracy, where is the immunity that state leaders are granted? A lion remains a lion even when he is captured,” Raghad said.

“His three daughters Raghad, Rana and Hala ask for a just international trial. He should not be tried by the Iraqi Governing Council ... and we have the right to defend our father.”

She said Saddam’s immediate family would hire a lawyer in his defence.

“How can we not hire a lawyer? This is the minimum right we owe him as his daughters.”—AFP