Sajida Talfah

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sajida Khairallah Talfah (Arabic: ساجدة خيرالله طلفاح‎) was the wife and 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 was married to Saddam in an arranged marriage in 1963. Before marrying, she was a primary school teacher.

Less than a year before Uday's attempted assassination in 1996, her husband Saddam Hussein had his sons-in-law and second cousins Hussein Kamel Hassan Majeed and Saddam Kamel Hassan Majeed 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]