BERLIN, March 20: A German coroner who has made a study of Saddam doubles said it was very probable Saddam Hussein appeared in person on television on Thursday following a US attack on Baghdad aimed at killing the Iraqi leader.

“The probability that it was Saddam Hussein is very, very high,” Dieter Buhmann told ARD television. “I have not been able to detect a single characteristic which could indicate this was not the real Saddam Hussein.”

Buhmann’s research into what he called at least three Saddam lookalikes was first aired on German television in September.

He studied films and photographs of Saddam, saying minor details such as the size of the ears, hands and shape of the shoulders distinguished Saddam from his doubles.

The study included 450 photographs of Saddam in Iraq and concluded there were at least three doubles posing as the Iraqi president.

Buhmann, who compared Thursday’s television images of Saddam’s speech with pictures of the Iraqi leader from 1990, said there was only a slight uncertainty of perhaps two to five per cent because of the grainy quality of Thursday’s recordings.

In Saddam’s speech, the Iraqi leader pointedly referred to the time of the attack, dawn in Baghdad, to stress he had survived what US officials said was an attempt to “decapitate” his government.

“At dawn prayers...the criminal, reckless little Bush and his aides committed this crime which he was threatening to commit against Iraq and humanity,” he said, wearing military uniform and a black beret instead of the usual civilian suit.—Reuters