WASHINGTON, March 23: Naji Sabri Hadithi, Iraq’s foreign minister under Saddam Hussein, was a paid spy for the French intelligence services prior to providing the CIA with information before the 2003 invasion, a US newspaper claimed on Thursday.

The Washington Post report, citing retired CIA officials, said the French intelligence services turned Sabri Hadithi over to the US spy agency to supply information about Iraq and its alleged weapons programs before the invasion.

“It was never clear what he wanted, but we never paid him,” one former official told the Post.

Sabri Hadithi denied on Wednesday that he provided the CIA with information about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction after a US television network claimed he had briefly spied for Washington in return for a 100,000-dollar payment.

“The information carried by the American channel NBC are lies, totally fabricated and unfounded,” Sabri Hadithi said in a telephone interview.

The NBC said Sabri Hadithi had traded information with the CIA in a French-sponsored New York City hotel room meeting.—AFP