Prison chief arrested over Saddam nephew's escape

BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities have arrested the head of Badush jail from which former president Saddam Hussein's nephew escaped a day ago, an Iraqi official said on Sunday.

Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf of the national police command centre said on national television that authorities had also detained the deputy prison governor as the escape of Ayman Sabawi appeared to be an inside job.

"We have detained the prison head and his deputy," Khalaf told state television without giving their names.

Sabawi, who is being hunted by security forces, is accused of financing the Sunni insurgency and providing its fighters with arms and explosives.

Khalaf said Iraqi authorities had been tipped off that members of the former ruling Baath party were planning to rescue Sabawi. Authorities at the prison, near the northern city of Mosul, were informed about this.

"We had information that the Baath party was planning with the help of some elements inside the prison to free the criminal Sabawi," Khalaf said.

"We had provided this information to prison authorities but they failed to prevent it."

The prison was well secured and "no prisoner can escape without inside help," said Khalaf.

Sabawi, the son of Saddam's half-brother Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, was seized in May 2005 in the ousted president's hometown of Tikrit.