Sajida Talfah

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Sajida Khairallah Talfah (Arabic: ساجدة خيرالله طلفة‎) is the first wife and first cousin of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and mother of two sons (Uday and Qusay) and three daughters (Raghad, Rana, and Hala). She is the oldest daughter of Khairallah Talfah. She has been married to Saddam in an arranged marriage since 1963. Before marrying, she was a primary school teacher.

She was placed under house arrest in 1997, on suspicion of involvement in the assassination attempt on her son, Uday, in December 1996.

Less than a year before Uday's attempted assassination, her husband Saddam Hussein had his sons-in-law and second cousins Hussein Kamel Hassan Majeed and Saddam Kamel Hassan Majeed killed. Sajida, who Jordanian witnesses said delivered her husband's personal guarantee to her daughters and their husbands, turned bitterly against Saddam when he had the men killed.

In April 2003, Sajida Talfah fled Iraq, possibly to Qatar. In July 2004, she hired a multi-lingual and multi-national defense team of some 20 lawyers to defend her husband during his trial for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other offences. Sajida herself is also a fugitive from justice, wanted in Iraq for murder, theft, embezzlement, ordering torture of her enemies, and other crimes.

On July 2, 2006, Iraq national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie announced that Sajida and her daughter Raghad Saddam Hussein are placed 17th and 16th on the Iraqi government's most wanted list for financing Sunni Muslim insurgents under Saddam's reign.[1][2]