ABOVE: SID VICIOUS WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND NANCY SPUNGEN
BELOW IS THE POLICE MUGSHOT OF SID VICIOUS AT THE TIME OF ONE OF HIS MANY ARRESTS , BACK IN 1979, IN NEW YORK , USA.
BELOW … IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS WEARING THESE BIKER BOOTS WHILST PRANCING ABOUT IN PARIS WHILST FILMING A TV DOCUMENTARY .
ABOVE AND BELOW …SID VICIOUS PERFORMING SOLO WEARING THESE LEATHER BOOTS ON WHAT WAS HIS LAST LIVE PERFORMANCE AT MAX’S KANSAS CITY , NEW YORK ON SEPTEMBER 29 1978 … LATER TO BE REPORTED IN THE NME DATED 14 OCTOBER 1978
SID VICIOUS PERFORMING SOLO WEARING THESE LEATHER BOOTS ON WHAT WAS HIS LAST LIVE PERFORMANCES AT MAX’S KANSAS CITY , NEW YORK ON SEPTEMBER 29 1978 … LATER TO BE REPORTED IN THE NME DATED 14 OCTOBER 1978
SID VICIOUS PERFORMING SOLO WEARING THESE LEATHER BOOTS ON WHAT WAS HIS LAST LIVE PERFORMANCES AT MAX’S KANSAS CITY , NEW YORK ON SEPTEMBER 29 1978 … LATER TO BE REPORTED IN THE NME DATED 14 OCTOBER 1978
NME CUTTING DATED 14 OCTOBER 1978 OF SID VICIOUS WEARING THESE BOOTS DURING HIS SOLO GIG AT MAX’S KANSAS CITY GIG … A GREAT RARE CLOSE-UP OF SID’S BOOTS AS WAS LAST WORN BY SID SHORTLY BEFORE HIS ARREST FOR THE MURDER OF HIS GIRLFRIEND NANCY SPUNGEN ON 12 OCTOBER 1978
PURCHASE RECEIPT FOR THE BOOTS … BOUGHT BY ANDY JONES FOR THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AT FRASERS AUCTION HOUSE , LONDON, BACK IN 2000
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Above are several images of Sid Vicious most treasured leather biker boots , which he can also be seen wearing in this video of him prancing about in Paris , France . in his alleged suicide note ( many believe that this was actually written by his mother Anne Beverley ) he had requested that he be buried with his leather jacket and these leather biker boots … This was never the case as he was cremated and his ashes were secretly thrown over Nancy’s grave . His mother had subsequently kept his personal clothing last worn by him and later these boots were auctioned off in the year 2000 by Alan Parker through Frasers Auctions , London . Bought by Andy Jones of the Crime Through Time Collection and now on permanent display at Littledean Jail , Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, UK .
Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman of Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen on display in and amongst our Punk Rock Collection here at Littledean Jail.
ABOVE IS SID’S ( NOW WELL AGED ) BIKE CHAIN BRACELET ALONG WITH IMAGE OF HIM WEARING THIS . ALSO HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL .
Sid Vicious, born John Simon Ritchie, later named John Beverley (10 May 1957 – 2 February 1979), was an English bass guitarist, drummer and vocalist, most famous as a member of the influential punk rock band the Sex Pistols, and notorious for his arrest for the murder of his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen.
Vicious joined the Sex Pistols in early 1977, to replace Glen Matlock, who had fallen out of favour with the rest of the group. Due to intravenous drug use, Vicious was hospitalized with hepatitis during the recording of the band’s only studio album Never Mind the Bollocks. Accordingly, his bass is only partially featured on one song from the album. Vicious would later appear as a lead vocalist, performing three cover songs, on the soundtrack to The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, a largely fictionalized documentary about the Sex Pistols, produced by the group’s former manager Malcolm McLaren and directed by Julien Temple.
During the brief and chaotic ascendancy of the Sex Pistols, Vicious met eventual girlfriend and manager Nancy Spungen. Spungen and Vicious entered a destructive codependent relationship based on drug use. This culminated in Spungen’s death from an apparent stab wound while staying in New York City‘s Hotel Chelsea with Vicious. Under suspicion of having committed Spungen’s murder, Vicious was released on bail; he was later arrested again for assaulting Todd Smith, brother of Patti Smith, at a night club, and underwent drug rehabilitation on Rikers Island. In celebration of Vicious’ release from prison, his mother hosted a party for him at his girlfriend’s residence in Greenwich Village, which was attended notably by the Misfits bassist Jerry Only.
Vicious’ mother had been supplying him with drugs and paraphernalia since he was young, and assisted him in procuring heroin late that night. Vicious died in his sleep, having overdosed on the heroin his mother had procured.
Less than four weeks after Vicious’ death, the soundtrack album of The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle was released. Later that year, on 15 December, a compilation of live material recorded during his brief solo career was packaged and released as Sid Sings.
ABOVE IS AN EXCEPTIONALLY SCARCE AND RARE SIGNED BY BOTH PHOTOGRAPH OF SID AND NANCY TOGETHER .
BELOW IS THE ICONIC AND CONTROVERSIAL ALBUM COVER OF THE SEX PISTOLS …” NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS HERE’S THE SEX PISTOLS ” THIS BEING A FULLY SIGNED BY THE ORIGINAL PISTOLS LINE UP ON A RARE RUSSIAN VERSION OF THE ALBUM .
Nancy Spungen death and Sid Vicious arrest
Sid Vicious mugshot 9 December 1978
On the morning of 12 October 1978, Vicious claimed to have awoken from a drugged stupor to find Nancy Spungen dead on the bathroom floor of their room in the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan, New York. She had suffered a single stab wound to her abdomen and appeared to have bled to death. The knife used had been bought by Vicious on 42nd Street and was identical to a “007” flip-knife given to punk rock vocalist Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys by Dee Dee Ramone. According to Dee Dee’s wife at the time, Vera King Ramone, Vicious had bought the knife after seeing Stiv’s. Vicious was arrested and charged with her murder.[He said they had fought that night but gave conflicting versions of what happened next, saying, “I stabbed her, but I never meant to kill her”, then saying that he did not remember and at one point during the argument Spungen had fallen onto the knife
On 22 October, ten days after Spungen’s death, Vicious attempted suicide by slitting his wrist with a smashed light bulb and was subsequently hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital where he also tried killing himself by jumping from a window as well as shouting “I want to be with my Nancy” or other similar words, but was pulled back by hospital staff. In an interview he gave in November 1978, he said that Nancy’s death was “meant to happen” and that “Nancy always said she’d die before she was 21.” Near the end of the interview, he was asked if he was having fun. In reply, he asked the interviewer if he was kidding, adding that he would like to be “under the ground.” It was also at Bellevue that he met his lawyer James Merberg, who did everything he could to keep Vicious out of jail.
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SID VICIOUS SUICIDE BY OVERDOSE
On the evening of February 1, 1979, a small gathering to celebrate Vicious having made bail was held at the 63 Bank Street, New York apartment of his new girlfriend, Michelle Robinson. Sid and Michelle had started dating in November after Sid was released from Bellevue Hospital the previous October. Vicious was clean, having been on a detoxification methadone program during his time at Rikers Island. At the dinner gathering, however, Sid had some heroin delivered by his friend, English photographer Peter Kodick, against the wishes of Sid’s girlfriend and some other people at the party. It was also during this party that Sid had apparently spent the hours looking towards the future; he had plans for an album he was going to record to get his life and career on track should he be off the hook. Vicious overdosed at midnight, but everyone who was there that night worked together to get him up and walking around in order to revive him. At 3:00 am, Vicious and Michelle Robinson went to bed together. Vicious died in the night and was discovered dead by Anne and Michelle early the next morning.
In his first interview, appearing in the Daily Mirror‘s June 11, 1977 issue, Vicious said “I’ll probably die by the time I reach 25. But I’ll have lived the way I wanted to.”
A few days after Vicious’ cremation, his mother allegedly found a suicide note in the pocket of his jacket:
We had a death pact, and I have to keep my half of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby. Bury me in my leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots Goodbye.
Since Spungen was Jewish, she was buried in a Jewish cemetery. As Vicious was not Jewish, he could not be buried with her. According to the book Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, Jerry Only of the Misfits drove Anne and her sister, and two of Sid’s friends to the cemetery where Nancy was buried and Anne scattered Sid’s ashes over Nancy Spungen’s grave. In the same book, it is alleged that the cemetery didn’t want to be associated with Vicious and his inherent negative reputation, and it is speculated that this was of greater importance to them than the above stated reason he and Nancy weren’t able to be buried together.
DEEMED TO BE A BRUTISH CRIME MUSEUM, TOUCHING UPON TRUE CRIME , MURDERABILIA, MAIMERABILIA, POLITICAL INCORRECTNESS, SLEAZE, SCANDAL, THE BIZARRE AND THE TABOO …….
WHAT ON EARTH DO VISITORS EXPECT TO SEE HERE ON DISPLAY ANYWAY?
CONTRARY TO SOME PEOPLES PERCEPTION ……THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL DOES NOT GLORIFY OR CONDONE THE MANY EVIL MONSTERS WE TOUCH UPON AND FEATURE HERE . FURTHERMORE WE HOPEFULLY PROVIDE VISITORS WITH A PSYCHOLOGICAL AND EDUCATIONAL INSIGHT INTO THE MINDS OF ALL THOSE THAT WE FEATURE HERE ON DISPLAY
THE CONTENT WE FEATURE IS IN THE MAIN HORRIFIC, GRAPHIC, AND EXPLICIT AND TOUCHES UPON A GREAT MANY SENSITIVE SUBJECT MATTERS AND AS SUCH IS NOT, AND SHOULD NOT BE PRESENTED IN A PLEASANT WAY EITHER.
AS WE REPEATEDLY SAY TO ALL POTENTIAL VISITORS …… PLEASE DO AVOID IF EASILY OFFENDED, DISTURBED OR OF A SENSITIVE NATURE .
WHILST WE DO ALLOW CHILDREN INTO OUR ESTABLISHMENT… THIS IS SOLELY AT THE DISCRETION OF THEIR PARENTS OR GUARDIANS . WE ARE AN X-RATED ATTRACTION AND DO NOT ENCOURAGE CHILDREN BUT CANNOT STOP THEIR GUARDIANS FROM BRINGING THEM WITH THEM IF THEY SO WISH
A unique original hand drawn and signed charcoal self portrait by Peter Sutcliffe – The Yorkshire Ripper , drawn whilst incarcerated at Broadmoor Hospital . It is signed PWS , which is initials for Peter William Sutcliffe . On display at The Crime Through Time Collection , Littledean Jail , Gloucestershire , UK
Peter Coonan (born Peter William Sutcliffe, 2 June 1946) is an English serial killer who was dubbed the “Yorkshire Ripper” by the press. In 1981, Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering thirteen women and attempting to murder seven others.Sutcliffe had regularly used the services of prostitutes in Leeds and Bradford. His outbreak of violence towards them seems to have occurred because he was swindled out of money by a prostitute and her pimp but he claimed, when interviewed by authorities, that the voice of God had sent him on a mission to kill prostitutes.Sutcliffe carried out his murder spree over five years, during which the public were especially shocked by the murders of women who were not prostitutes. After his arrest for driving with false number plates in January 1981, the police questioned him about the killings and he confessed that he was the perpetrator.At his trial, he pleaded not guilty to murder on grounds of diminished responsibility, owing to a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia; but the defence was rejected by a majority of the jury. He is serving twenty concurrent sentences of life imprisonment. Following his conviction, Sutcliffe began using his mother’s maiden name and became known as Peter William Coonan
ABOVE AND BELOW … ORIGINAL PAINTING BY GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN
Below :A unique original oil painting on canvas dated and signed in 1993 by Peter Sutcliffe – The Yorkshire Ripper , painted by him whilst incarcerated at Broadmoor Hospital . It is signed PWS , which is initials for Peter William Sutcliffe . On display at The Crime Through Time Collection , Littledean Jail , Gloucestershire , UK
BELOW ARE VARIOUS IMAGES OF PETER SUTCLIFFE INCLUDING A RECENT 2015 IMAGE TAKEN AT BROADMOOR , WHERE HE IS STILL IMPRISONED .
Above and below: A brief psychological insight into the mind of British serial killer Peter Sutcliffe AKA ” The Yorkshire Ripper ” through his handwritten poetry
PETER SUTCLIFFE 2015
THE SUN ON SUNDAY 02ND SEPTEMBER 2012 FEATURES THE YORKSHIRE RIPPER EXHIBITION AS ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL.
AN EXHIBITION THAT SIMPLY PROVIDES A GLIMPSE INTO THE CUSHY LIFE OF LUXURY AND PASTIME PLEASURES ENJOYED BY ONE OF THE UK’S MOST EVIL MONSTERS … PETER SUTCLIFFE
—————————————————————————————————-THE DAILY MAIL ALSO FEATURES THE EXHIBITION IN THEIR ONLINE EDITION ON THE 03RD SEPTEMBER 2012
Chilling insight into the Yorkshire Ripper’s world: Never before seen prison possessions of killer Peter Sutcliffe go on public display
PUBLISHED: 00:06, 3 September 2012 | UPDATED: 10:29, 3 September 2012
They offer a chilling glimpse into the dark world of Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe – and a insight into the mind of his twisted admirer.
Unseen personal collection of prison possessions belonging to the notorious serial killer have been put on public display for the first time – including handwritten love-letters from a besotted female pen-pal.
The items present a bizarre and pathetic picture of a killer scribbling desperate love-letters to his hypnotherapist and stripper pen pal, Sandra Lester, listening to 1980’s Eurythmics songs such as ‘Better to have Lost in Love’ and ‘I Can’t Stand it’, and reggae classic love songs.
Besotted: Sandra Lester sent this photograph to Peter Sutcliffe with a handwritten note asking the killer to ‘please accept my apologies for the delay’
Smut: The personal items includes a business card of Sandra Lester that she sent to killer Peter Sutcliffe which is now on display at Littledean Jail in Gloucestershire
Sutcliffe’s letters to Lester, who was also an escort girl and glamour model, were written from May 1993 to September that year.
The correspondence only ended, according to Lester – after Sutcliffe asked her to marry him and she rejected him.
The beast referred to their correspondence as his ‘Cloud nine’ letters and Lester as his ‘Sweet Potato’.
Pen pals: The illustrated letters from Peter Sutcliffe to his friend and confident Sandra Lester for part of the collection of personal items on display
Ramblings of a serial killer: Sutcliffe started this letter ‘Dearest Sandra’ and went on to thank her for her ‘enjoyable letter, sweetheart’ in the long, rambling correspondence
Revelations: According to his letters Sutcliffe’s favourite colours were: ‘turquoise, purple, emerald green and yellow. I like red but only in small amounts…as in large quantities it can be overpowering’
Flattery: Sutcliffe was complimentary about Sandra saying in this letter how she was ‘endearingly funny’
The cold-hearted killer joked about building a helicopter and ‘weaving a magic carpet’ to fly away on.
The letters also reveal how he fantasised about Lester and him running away together and living on a desert island or flying on a balloon over Africa’s tallest mountain, Kilimanjaro.
Sutcliffe told Lester that he had turned his hospital room into to a shrine to her, with pictures of her on display.
Sutcliffe appeared to encourage Lester’s attempts to introduce him to hypo-therapy via video tape recordings: ‘I played both videos (you sent me) over and over again, they’re a big help. I can feel a change for the better.’
Among the unseen items are cassette tapes showing the murderer’s feel-good musical tastes, a gloomy landscape oil painting signed with the initials PWS (Peter William Sutcliffe), a prison radio and desk lamp are all now displayed at the crime museum at Little Dean Jail, Gloucestershire.
After a 1970’s reign of terror in northern English cities including Leeds and Bradford, monster Sutcliffe was arrested and finally convicted in May 1981 of murdering 13 women, many of them sex workers, using a rope, knife and hammer – and attacking a further seven female victims.
Insight: The display includes items used by Peter Sutcliffe while at Broadmoor Secure Mental Hospital
Marked by a killer: The Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe clearly marks his music tapes – including Reggae Love Songs, left, and the Eurythmics’ Feminine Touch album, right – with his initial P.W.S
Mix tape of a serial killer: Cassette tapes reveal the murderer’s musical tastes
Sentenced to life imprisonment and sent to Broadmoor high security hospital for Britain’s most disturbed patients where he still languishes there half-blind thanks to repeated attacks by fellow inmates – this previously unseen collection of items sheds new light on how killer Sutcliffe has spent his time in captivity.
According to his letters Sutcliffe’s favourite colours were: ‘turquoise, purple, emerald green and yellow. I like red but only in small amounts…as in large quantities it can be overpowering.’
Sutcliffe’s letters showed he had a love of wildlife programmes. The murderer and rapist revealed his fondness for bee keeping, referring to them as ‘marvellous wee creatures.’
Ostriches were ‘absolutely beautiful wonderful creatures.’ His favourite dog was a spaniel as they were: ‘a good natured dog and so very loyal.’
The nightmare images of 16th century Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch, which depicts people being graphically tortured in hell, were ‘weird…but fascinating’ according to Sutcliffe.
He repeatedly requested Lester to send his pictures by surrealist painter Salvador Dali.
Sutcliffe’s favourite classical music was produced by legendary German composer Wolfgang Mozart and he described the music of Mozart’s symphony 41 as ‘pure genius’.
Crude: An oil painting by Peter Sutcliffe has his signature PWS on the bottom right corner
Looking for laughter: Sutcliffe was obviously a fan of Hancokck’s Half Hour, adding some of the comedian’s BBC’s shows to his collection of tapes
Prison art: An oil painting by Sutcliffe is signed with the initials PWS (Peter William Sutcliffe)
Keeping in contact: Serial killer Peter Sutcliffe had this old Roberts radio to maintain contact with the outside world
Possessive: Sutcliffe put his initials on nearly all his belongings – including inside his prized Roberts radioDespite complaining of being ‘drugged’ by members of staff at Broadmoor Hospital, Sutcliffe showed off his physical prowess to Lester, declaring that he completed 15miles on the communal exercise bike each day and had a body, ‘as strong as stainless steel’.
He even penned a threat to one female psychiatrist when complaining of how lethargic the medicines she was prescribing for Sutcliffe’s schizophrenia, saying he would tell her about it: ‘when I seize her – tee hee (sic).’
On show: An old Roberts radio used by Peter Sutcliffe after he changed his name to Peter Coonan is now displayed at Littledean Jail, Gloucestershire
At the end of his letters to Lester, Sutcliffe would sign off by gushing his gratitude across the page: ‘Thank you dearly for your soopa doopa exquisitely utopian lovely letter.’
Other items include Sutcliffe’s radio, a cassette of radio legend Tony Hancock’s hugely popular comedy sketch show, ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’.
The Crime through Time Museum at Little Dean Jail, Gloucestershire is home to memorabilia relating to some of Britain’s most notorious murderers and criminals.
Crime through Time curator Andy Jones said: ‘We are Britain’s most politically incorrect visitor attraction.’
‘The museum contains material that is unsuitable for families, including taboo and very scandalous subjects.
‘We do not glorify crime or murder and none of the items are collected for profit through sales.
‘We take great care to inform all potential visitors of what to expect to see.
‘It is not for families and people who are easily offended, disturbed or of a sensitive nature are strongly advised not to visit.’
All items on display have been authenticated by Sutcliffe’s brother, Carl Sutcliffe.
Glimpse into Sutcliffe’s cell: An old lamp used by Peter Sutcliffe while at Broadmoor Secure Mental Hospital is now displayed at Littledean Jail, Gloucestershire
Signed: The old lamp bears Sutcliffe’s initials and name, his prisoner number and ward name
DARK TOURISM HERE IN THE UK – WHERE GOOD AND EVIL COLLIDE & WHERE FANTASY MEETS REALITY .
TRUE CRIME , MURDERABILIA, WITCHCRAFT, SATANISM AND THE OCCULT …. IT’S ALL HERE AND MUCH MORE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN , GLOUCESTERSHIRE , UK .
ABOVE: Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman of John Wayne Gacy on display at Littledean Jail .
All of Gacy’s known murders were committed inside his Norwood Park, Illinois home. His victims would typically be lured to this address by force or deception, and all but one victim were murdered by either asphyxiation or strangulation with a tourniquet (his first victim was stabbed to death). Gacy buried 26 of his victims in the crawl space of his home. Three further victims were buried elsewhere on his property, while the bodies of his last four known victims were discarded in the Des Plaines River.
Gacy became known as the “Killer Clown” due to his charitable services at fundraising events, parades, and children’s parties where he would dress as “Pogo the Clown”, a character he devised himself.
BELOW : Various exhibit items to include one of Gacy’s “Pogo The Clown ” suits , handwritten and signed correspondence , a hand painting and various other memorabilia, all of which is on display here at The Crime Through Time Collection , Littledean Jail , Forest of Dean , Gloucestershire, UK .
ABOVE AND BELOW : One of John Wayne Gacy’s original worn clown suits. There are two other known Gacy clown suits on display at The National Museum of Crime , Washington DC , USA .
BELOW: picture of 2 other Gacy clown suits, on display at The National Museum of Crime, Washington DC ….. Previously owned ( not sure if he still owns them ) by Jonathan Davis, lead singer of American Heavy Metal Band “Korn .”
ABOVE: John Wayne Gacy pictured in jail, so say, shortly before his execution by lethal injection
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A BRUTAL TYRANT – SADDAM HUSSEIN …..
A GREAT MANY WOULD SAY AND FIRMLY BELIEVE THAT SADDAM HUSSEIN SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DEPOSED BY INTERFERING WESTERN POLITICAL LEADERS AND SHOULD HAVE REMAINED IN POWER ???
POLITE WARNING… WE ARE PREDOMINANTLY A HISTORICAL AND HOPEFULLY EDUCATIONAL MUSEUM OF CRIME, SLEAZE, SCANDAL AND THE TABOO ….THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL IS NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN OR THOSE EASILY DISTURBED OR OF A SENSITIVE NATURE ….
TRUE CRIME MURDERABILIA, MAIMERABILIA, DISMALABILIA AND MUCH MORE HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UK .
ON DISPLAY WE HAVE A VAST ARRAY OF TRUE CRIME RELATED MEMORABILIA ITEMS COVERING MANY OF THE WORLDS MOST EVIL MEN AND WOMEN, TYRANTS, WARLORD, SERIAL KILLERS, GANGSTERS, CRIMINALS, ETC.
A UNIQUE PRIVATE COLLECTION LIKE NO OTHER
BELOW IS THE GENUINE ORIGINAL TOILET SEAT REMOVED FROM SADDAM HUSSEIN’S BASRA PRESIDENTIAL PALACE AT THE TIME OF LIBERATION IN 2003 BY NEWS OF THE WORLD REPORTER CHRIS BUXTON WHO WAS THERE WITH THE UK’S DESERT RATS ON 7 APRIL 2003 . THIS NOW ON DISPLAY HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL
Below : News Of The World Journalist Chris Buxton pictured at Saddam Hussein’s Basra Palace in Iraq inside the toilet area
BELOW: CLOSE UP OF SADDAM’S TOILET SEAT, UNDOUBTEDLY USED BY SADDAM AND HIS ROYAL FAMILY ON A GREAT MANY OCCASSIONS PRIOR TO THE LIBERATION OF IRAQ AND HIS SUBSEQUENT CAPTURE IN 2003
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي Ṣaddām Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Maǧīd al-Tikrītī;[2] 28 April 1937[3] – 30 December 2006)[4] was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003.[5][6] A leading member of the revolutionary Iraqi Ba’ath Party, which espoused a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup that brought the party to long-term power of Iraq.
As vice president under the ailing General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and at a time when many groups were considered capable of overthrowing the government, Saddam created security forces through which he tightly controlled conflict between the government and the armed forces. In the early 1970s, Saddam nationalized oil and other industries. The state-owned banks were put under his control, leaving the system eventually insolvent.[7] Through the 1970s, Saddam cemented his authority over the apparatuses of government as oil money helped Iraq’s economy to grow at a rapid pace.[8] Positions of power in the country were filled with Sunnis, a minority that made up only a fifth of the population.
Saddam suppressed several movements, particularly Shi’a and Kurdish movements seeking to overthrow the government or gain independence, respectively.[citation needed] Saddam maintained power during the Iran–Iraq War of 1980 through 1988. In 1990 he invaded and looted Kuwait. An international coalition came to free Kuwait in the Gulf War of 1991, but did not end Saddam’s rule. Whereas some venerated him for his aggressive stance against Israel, including firing missiles at Israeli targets,[9] he was widely condemned for the brutality of his dictatorship.
In March 2003, a coalition of countries led by the U.S. and U.K. invaded Iraq to depose Saddam, controversially citing his weapons of mass destruction and terror links. Saddam’s Ba’ath party was disbanded and the nation made a transition to a democratic system. Following his capture on 13 December 2003 (inOperation Red Dawn), the trial of Saddam took place under the Iraqi interim government. On 5 November 2006, he was convicted of charges related to the 1982 killing of 148 Iraqi Shi’ites and was sentenced to death by hanging. The execution of Saddam Hussein was carried out on 30 December 2006.[10]
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was born in the town of Al-Awja, 13 km (8 mi) from the Iraqi town of Tikrit, to a family of shepherds from the al-Begat tribal group, a sub-group of the Al-Bu Nasir (البو ناصر) tribe. His mother, Subha Tulfah al-Mussallat, named her newborn son Saddam, which in Arabicmeans “One who confronts”; he is always referred to by this personal name, which may be followed by the patronymic and other elements. He never knew his father, Hussein ‘Abid al-Majid, who disappeared six months before Saddam was born. Shortly afterward, Saddam’s 13-year-old brother died of cancer. The infant Saddam was sent to the family of his maternal uncle Khairallah Talfah until he was three.[11]Youth
His mother remarried, and Saddam gained three half-brothers through this marriage. His stepfather, Ibrahim al-Hassan, treated Saddam harshly after his return. At about age 10, Saddam fled the family and returned to live in Baghdad with his uncle Kharaillah Tulfah. Tulfah, the father of Saddam’s future wife, was a devout Sunni Muslim and a veteran from the 1941 Anglo-Iraqi War between Iraqi nationalists and the United Kingdom, which remained a major colonial power in the region.[12] Later in his life relatives from his native Tikrit became some of his closest advisors and supporters. Under the guidance of his uncle he attended a nationalistic high school in Baghdad. After secondary school Saddam studied at an Iraqi law school for three years, dropping out in 1957 at the age of 20 to join the revolutionary pan-Arab Ba’ath Party, of which his uncle was a supporter. During this time, Saddam apparently supported himself as a secondary school teacher.[13]
Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath Partystudent cell, Cairo, in the period 1959–1963
Revolutionary sentiment was characteristic of the era in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. In Iraq progressives and socialists assailed traditional political elites (colonial era bureaucrats and landowners, wealthy merchants and tribal chiefs, monarchists).[14] Moreover, the pan-Arab nationalism of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt profoundly influenced young Ba’athists like Saddam. The rise of Nasser foreshadowed a wave of revolutions throughout the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960s, with the collapse of the monarchies of Iraq, Egypt, and Libya. Nasser inspired nationalists throughout the Middle East by fighting the British and the French during the Suez Crisis of 1956, modernizing Egypt, and uniting the Arab world politically.[15]
In 1958, a year after Saddam had joined the Ba’ath party, army officers led by General Abd al-Karim Qasim overthrew Faisal II of Iraq. The Ba’athists opposed the new government, and in 1959 Saddam was involved in the unsuccessful United States-backed plot to assassinate Qasim.[16]
Rise to power
Army officers with ties to the Ba’ath Party overthrew Qasim in a coup in 1963. Ba’athist leaders were appointed to the cabinet and Abdul Salam Arif became president. Arif dismissed and arrested the Ba’athist leaders later that year. Saddam returned to Iraq, but was imprisoned in 1964. Just prior to his imprisonment and until 1968, Saddam held the position of Ba’ath party secretary.[17] He escaped from prison in 1967 and quickly became a leading member of the party. In 1968, Saddam participated in a bloodless coup led by Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr that overthrew Abdul Rahman Arif. Al-Bakr was named president and Saddam was named his deputy, and deputy chairman of the Baathist Revolutionary Command Council. According to biographers, Saddam never forgot the tensions within the first Ba’athist government, which formed the basis for his measures to promote Ba’ath party unity as well as his resolve to maintain power and programs to ensure social stability.
Iraq was a strategic buffer state for the United States against the Soviet Union, and Saddam was often seen as an anti-Soviet leader in the 1960s and 1970s. Some even suggested that John F. Kennedy’s administration supported the Ba’ath party’s takeover.[18] Although Saddam was al-Bakr’s deputy, he was a strong behind-the-scenes party politician. Al-Bakr was the older and more prestigious of the two, but by 1969 Saddam Hussein clearly had become the moving force behind the party.
Political program
Promoting women’s literacy and education in the 1970s
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, as vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, formally the al-Bakr’s second-in-command, Saddam built a reputation as a progressive, effective politician.[19] At this time, Saddam moved up the ranks in the new government by aiding attempts to strengthen and unify the Ba’ath party and taking a leading role in addressing the country’s major domestic problems and expanding the party’s following.
After the Baathists took power in 1968, Saddam focused on attaining stability in a nation riddled with profound tensions. Long before Saddam, Iraq had been split along social, ethnic, religious, and economic fault lines: Sunni versus Shi’ite, Arab versus Kurd, tribal chief versus urban merchant, nomad versus peasant.[20] Stable rule in a country rife with factionalism required[dubious – discuss] both massive repression and the improvement of living standards.[20]
Saddam actively fostered the modernization of the Iraqi economy along with the creation of a strong security apparatus to prevent coups within the power structure and insurrections apart from it. Ever concerned with broadening his base of support among the diverse elements of Iraqi society and mobilizing mass support, he closely followed the administration of state welfare and development programs.
At the center of this strategy was Iraq’s oil. On 1 June 1972, Saddam oversaw the seizure of international oil interests, which, at the time, dominated the country’s oil sector. A year later, world oil prices rose dramatically as a result of the 1973 energy crisis, and skyrocketing revenues enabled Saddam to expand his agenda.
Within just a few years, Iraq was providing social services that were unprecedented among Middle Eastern countries. Saddam established and controlled the “National Campaign for the Eradication of Illiteracy” and the campaign for “Compulsory Free Education in Iraq,” and largely under his auspices, the government established universal free schooling up to the highest education levels; hundreds of thousands learned to read in the years following the initiation of the program. The government also supported families of soldiers, granted free hospitalization to everyone, and gave subsidies to farmers. Iraq created one of the most modernized public-health systems in the Middle East, earning Saddam an award from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization(UNESCO).[21][22]
With the help of increasing oil revenues, Saddam diversified the largely oil-based Iraqi economy. Saddam implemented a national infrastructure campaign that made great progress in building roads, promoting mining, and developing other industries. The campaign helped Iraq’s energy industries. Electricity was brought to nearly every city in Iraq, and many outlying areas.
Before the 1970s, most of Iraq’s people lived in the countryside and roughly two-thirds were peasants. This number would decrease quickly during the 1970s as global oil prices helped revenues to rise from less than a half billion dollars to tens of billions of dollars and the country invested into industrial expansion.
Saddam was lucky for the revenue.[23] The Economist described the sentiments, stating that “Much as Adolf Hitler won early praise for galvanising German industry, ending mass unemployment and building autobahns, Saddam earned admiration abroad for his deeds. He had a good instinct for what the “Arab street” demanded, following the decline in Egyptian leadership brought about by the trauma of Israel’s six-day victory in the 1967 war, the death of the pan-Arabist hero, Gamal Abdul Nasser, in 1970, and the “traitorous” drive by his successor, Anwar Sadat, to sue for peace with the Jewish state. Saddam’s self-aggrandising propaganda, with himself posing as the defender of Arabism against Jewish or Persian intruders, was heavy-handed, but consistent as a drumbeat. It helped, of course, that his mukhabarat (secret police) put dozens of Arab news editors, writers and artists on the payroll.”[23]
In 1972 Saddam started developing his chemical weapons program. In 1973 he signed a 15-year Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union.
Saddam focused on fostering loyalty to the Ba’athists in the rural areas. After nationalizing foreign oil interests, Saddam supervised the modernization of the countryside, mechanizing agriculture on a large scale, and distributing land to peasant farmers.[13] The Ba’athists established farm cooperatives and the government also doubled expenditures for agricultural development in 1974–1975. Saddam’s welfare programs were part of a combination of “carrot and stick” tactics to enhance support for Saddam. The state-owned banks were put under his thumb. Lending was based on cronyism[7]
Development went forward at such a fevered pitch that two million people from other Arab countries and even Yugoslavia worked in Iraq to meet the growing demand for labor.
Succession
In 1976, Saddam rose to the position of general in the Iraqi armed forces, and rapidly became the strongman of the government. As the ailing, elderly al-Bakr became unable to execute his duties, Saddam took on an increasingly prominent role as the face of the government both internally and externally. He soon became the architect of Iraq’s foreign policy and represented the nation in all diplomatic situations. He was the de facto leader of Iraq some years before he formally came to power in 1979. He slowly began to consolidate his power over Iraq’s government and the Ba’ath party. Relationships with fellow party members were carefully cultivated, and Saddam soon accumulated a powerful circle of support within the party.
In 1979 al-Bakr started to make treaties with Syria, also under Ba’athist leadership, that would lead to unification between the two countries. Syrian President Hafez al-Assad would become deputy leader in a union, and this would drive Saddam to obscurity. Saddam acted to secure his grip on power. He forced the ailing al-Bakr to resign on 16 July 1979, and formally assumed the presidency.
Shortly afterwards, he convened an assembly of Ba’ath party leaders on 22 July 1979. During the assembly, which he ordered videotaped (viewable via this reference[24]), Saddam claimed to have found a fifth column within the Ba’ath Party and directed Muhyi Abdel-Hussein to read out a confession and the names of 68 alleged co-conspirators. These members were labelled “disloyal” and were removed from the room one by one and taken into custody. After the list was read, Saddam congratulated those still seated in the room for their past and future loyalty. The 68 people arrested at the meeting were subsequently tried together and found guilty of treason. 22 were sentenced to execution. Other high-ranking members of the party formed the firing squad. By 1 August 1979, hundreds of high-ranking Ba’ath party members had been executed.[25][26]
Saddam was notable for terror against his own people. The Economist described Saddam as “one of the last of the 20th century’s great dictators, but not the least in terms of egotism, or cruelty, or morbid will to power”.[23]
The New York Times described in its obituary how Saddam “murdered as many as a million of his people, many with poison gas. He tortured, maimed and imprisoned countless more. His unprovoked invasion of Iran is estimated to have left another million people dead. His seizure of Kuwait threw the Middle East into crisis. More insidious, arguably, was the psychological damage he inflicted on his own land. Hussein created a nation of informants — friends on friends, circles within circles — making an entire population complicit in his rule”.[29] Others have estimated 800,000 deaths caused by Saddam not counting the Iran-Iraq war.[30] Estimates as to the number of Iraqis executed by Saddam’s regime vary from 300–500,000[31] to over 600,000,[32] estimates as to the number of Kurds he massacred vary from 70,000 to 300,000,[33] and estimates as to the number killed in the put-down of the 1991 rebellion vary from 60,000[34] to 200,000.[32] Estimates for the number of dead in the Iran-Iraq war range upwards from 300,000.[35]
Iraqi society is divided along lines of language, religion and ethnicity; Saddam’s government rested on the support of the 20% minority of Sunnis. The Ba’ath Party was increasingly concerned about potential Shi’a Islamist influence following the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The Kurds of northern Iraq (who are Sunni, but not Arabs) were also permanently hostile to the Ba’athist party’s pan-Arabism. To maintain power Saddam tended either to provide them with benefits so as to co-opt them into the regime, or to take repressive measures against them. The major instruments for accomplishing this control were the paramilitary and police organizations. Beginning in 1974, Taha Yassin Ramadan (himself a Kurd Baathist), a close associate of Saddam, commanded the People’s Army, which was responsible for internal security. As the Ba’ath Party’s paramilitary, the People’s Army acted as a counterweight against any coup attempts by the regular armed forces. In addition to the People’s Army, the Department of General Intelligence (Mukhabarat) was the most notorious arm of the state security system, feared for its use of torture and assassination. It was commanded by Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam’s younger half-brother. Since 1982, foreign observers believed that this department operated both at home and abroad in their mission to seek out and eliminate Saddam’s perceived opponents.[36]
As a sign of his consolidation of power, Saddam’s personality cult pervaded Iraqi society. Thousands of portraits, posters, statues and murals were erected in his honor all over Iraq. His face could be seen on the sides of office buildings, schools, airports, and shops, as well as on Iraqi currency. Saddam’s personality cult reflected his efforts to appeal to the various elements in Iraqi society. He appeared in the costumes of the Bedouin, the traditional clothes of the Iraqi peasant (which he essentially wore during his childhood), and even Kurdish clothing, but also appeared in Western suits, projecting the image of an urbane and modern leader. Sometimes he would also be portrayed as a devout Muslim, wearing full headdress and robe, praying toward Mecca.
He erected statues around the country, which Iraqis toppled after his fall.[37]
Iraq’s relations with the Arab world have been extremely varied. Relations between Iraq and Egypt violently ruptured in 1977, when the two nations broke relations with each other following Iraq’s criticism of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat‘s peace initiatives with Israel. In 1978, Baghdad hosted an Arab League summit that condemned and ostracized Egypt for accepting the Camp David accords. However, Egypt’s strong material and diplomatic support for Iraq in the war with Iran led to warmer relations and numerous contacts between senior officials, despite the continued absence of ambassadorial-level representation. Since 1983, Iraq has repeatedly called for restoration of Egypt’s “natural role” among Arab countries.
Saddam developed a reputation for liking expensive goods, such as his diamond-coated Rolex wristwatch, and sent copies of them to his friends around the world. To his ally Kenneth Kaunda Saddam once sent a Boeing 747 full of presents — rugs, televisions, ornaments. Kaunda sent back his own personal magician.[38]
Saddam had close relationship with Russian intelligence agent Yevgeny Primakov and apparently Primakov helped Saddam to stay in power in 1991.[39]
Saddam’s only visit to a Western country took place in September 1975 when he met with his friend, Prime Minister Jacques Chirac in Paris, France.[40]
Several Iraqi leaders, Lebanese arms merchant Sarkis Soghanalian and others have told that Saddam financed Chirac’s party. In 1991 Saddam threatened to expose those who had taken largasse from him: “From Mr. Chirac to Mr. Chevènement, politicians and economic leaders were in open competition to spend time with us and flatter us. We have now grasped the reality of the situation. If the trickery continues, we will be forced to unmask them, all of them, before the French public.”[40] France armed Saddam and it was Iraq’s largest trade partner throughout Saddam’s rule. Seized documents show how French officials and businessmen close to Chirac, including Charles Pasqua, his former interior minister, personally benefitted from the deals with Saddam.[40]
Because that Saddam Hussein rarely left Iraq, Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam’s aides, traveled abroad extensively and represented Iraq at many diplomatic meetings.[41] In foreign affairs, Saddam sought to have Iraq play a leading role in the Middle East. Iraq signed an aid pact with the Soviet Union in 1972, and arms were sent along with several thousand advisers. However, the 1978 crackdown on Iraqi Communists and a shift of trade toward the West strained Iraqi relations with the Soviet Union; Iraq then took on a more Western orientation until the Gulf War in 1991.[42]
After the oil crisis of 1973, France had changed to a more pro-Arab policy and was accordingly rewarded by Saddam with closer ties. He made a state visit to France in 1975, cementing close ties with some French business and ruling political circles. In 1975 Saddam negotiated an accord with Iran that contained Iraqi concessions on border disputes. In return, Iran agreed to stop supporting opposition Kurds in Iraq. Saddam led Arab opposition to the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel (1979).
Saddam initiated Iraq’s nuclear enrichment project in the 1980s, with French assistance. The first Iraqi nuclear reactor was named by the French “Osirak“. Osirak was destroyed on 7 June 1981[43] by an Israeli air strike (Operation Opera).
Nearly from its founding as a modern state in 1920, Iraq has had to deal with Kurdish separatists in the northern part of the country.[44] Saddam did negotiate an agreement in 1970 with separatist Kurdish leaders, giving them autonomy, but the agreement broke down. The result was brutal fighting between the government and Kurdish groups and even Iraqi bombing of Kurdish villages in Iran, which caused Iraqi relations with Iran to deteriorate. However, after Saddam had negotiated the 1975 treaty with Iran, the Shah withdrew support for the Kurds, who suffered a total defeat.
In early 1979, Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution, thus giving way to an Islamic republic led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. The influence of revolutionary Shi’ite Islam grew apace in the region, particularly in countries with large Shi’ite populations, especially Iraq. Saddam feared that radical Islamic ideas — hostile to his secular rule — were rapidly spreading inside his country among the majority Shi’ite population.
There had also been bitter enmity between Saddam and Khomeini since the 1970s. Khomeini, having been exiled from Iran in 1964, took up residence in Iraq, at the Shi’ite holy city of An Najaf. There he involved himself with Iraqi Shi’ites and developed a strong, worldwide religious and political following against the Iranian Government, whom Saddam tolerated. However, when Khomeini began to urge the Shi’ites there to overthrow Saddam and under pressure from the Shah, who had agreed to a rapprochement between Iraq and Iran in 1975, Saddam agreed to expel Khomeini in 1978 to France. However this turned out to be an imminent failure and a political catalyst, for Khomeini had access to more media connections and also collaborated with a much larger Iranian community under his support whom he used to his advantage.
After Khomeini gained power, skirmishes between Iraq and revolutionary Iran occurred for ten months over the sovereignty of the disputed Shatt al-Arabwaterway, which divides the two countries. During this period, Saddam Hussein publicly maintained that it was in Iraq’s interest not to engage with Iran, and that it was in the interests of both nations to maintain peaceful relations. However, in a private meeting with Salah Omar Al-Ali, Iraq’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations, he revealed that he intended to invade and occupy a large part of Iran within months. Later (probably to appeal for support from the United States and most Western nations), he would make toppling the Islamic government one of his intentions as well. Iraq invaded Iran, first attackingMehrabad Airport of Tehran and then entering the oil-rich Iranian land of Khuzestan, which also has a sizable Arab minority, on 22 September 1980 and declared it a new province of Iraq. With the support of the Arab states, the United States, and Europe, and heavily financed by the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, Saddam Hussein had become “the defender of the Arab world” against a revolutionary Iran. The only exception was The Soviet Union, who initially refused to supply Iraq on the basis of Neutrality in the conflict, although in his memoirs, Mikhail Gorbachev claimed that Leonid Brezhnev refused to aid Saddam over infuriation of Saddam’s treatment of Iraqi Communists. Consequently, many viewed Iraq as “an agent of the civilized world”.[45] The blatant disregard of international law and violations of international borders were ignored. Instead Iraq received economic and military support from its allies, who conveniently overlooked Saddam’s use of chemical warfare against the Kurds and the Iranians and Iraq’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons.[45]
In the first days of the war, there was heavy ground fighting around strategic ports as Iraq launched an attack on Khuzestan. After making some initial gains, Iraq’s troops began to suffer losses from human wave attacks by Iran. By 1982, Iraq was on the defensive and looking for ways to end the war.
At this point, Saddam asked his ministers for candid advice. Health Minister Dr. Riyadh Ibrahim suggested that Saddam temporarily step down to promote peace negotiations. Initially, Saddam Hussein appeared to take in this opinion as part of his cabinet democracy. A few weeks later, Dr. Ibrahim was sacked when held responsible for a fatal incident in an Iraqi hospital where a patient died from intravenous administration of the wrong concentration of potassium supplement.
Dr. Ibrahim was arrested a few days after he started his new life as a sacked Minister. He was known to have publicly declared before that arrest that he was “glad that he got away alive.” Pieces of Ibrahim’s dismembered body were delivered to his wife the next day.[46]
Iraq quickly found itself bogged down in one of the longest and most destructive wars of attrition of the twentieth century. During the war, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces fighting on the southern front and Kurdish separatists who were attempting to open up a northern front in Iraq with the help of Iran. These chemical weapons were developed by Iraq from materials and technology supplied primarily by West German companies as well as [47] theReagan administration of the United States which also supplied Iraq with “satellite photos showing Iranian deployments”[48] and advised Hussein to bomb civilian targets in Tehran and other Iranian cities.[49] France sold 25 billion dollars worth arms to Saddam.[40]
Saddam reached out to other Arab governments for cash and political support during the war, particularly after Iraq’s oil industry severely suffered at the hands of the Iranian navy in the Persian Gulf. Iraq successfully gained some military and financial aid, as well as diplomatic and moral support, from the Soviet Union, China, France, and the United States, which together feared the prospects of the expansion of revolutionary Iran’s influence in the region. The Iranians, demanding that the international community should force Iraq to pay war reparations to Iran, refused any suggestions for a cease-fire. Despite several calls for a ceasefire by the United Nations Security Council, hostilities continued until 20 August 1988.
On 16 March 1988, the Kurdish town of Halabja was attacked with a mix of mustard gas and nerve agents, killing 5,000 civilians, and maiming, disfiguring, or seriously debilitating 10,000 more. (see Halabja poison gas attack)[50] The attack occurred in conjunction with the 1988 al-Anfal campaign designed to reassert central control of the mostly Kurdish population of areas of northern Iraq and defeat the Kurdish peshmerga rebel forces. The United States now maintains that Saddam ordered the attack to terrorize the Kurdish population in northern Iraq,[50] but Saddam’s regime claimed at the time that Iran was responsible for the attack[51] which some including the U.S. supported until several years later. (See also Halabja poison gas attack.)
The bloody eight-year war ended in a stalemate. There were hundreds of thousands of casualties with estimates of up to one million dead. Neither side had achieved what they had originally desired and at the borders were left nearly unchanged. The southern, oil rich and prosperous Khuzestan and Basra area (the main focus of the war, and the primary source of their economies) were almost completely destroyed and were left at the pre 1979 border, while Iran managed to make some small gains on its borders in the Northern Kurdish area. Both economies, previously healthy and expanding, were left in ruins.
Saddam borrowed tens of billions of dollars from other Arab states and a few billions from elsewhere during the 1980s to fight Iran, mainly to prevent the expansion of Shiite radicalism. However, this had proven to completely backfire both on Iraq and on the part of the Arab states, for Khomeini was widely perceived as a hero for managing to defend Iran and maintain the war with little foreign support against the heavily backed Iraq and only managed to boost Islamic radicalism not only within the Arab states, but within Iraq itself, creating new tensions between the Sunni Baath Party and the majority Shiite population. Faced with rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure and internal resistance, Saddam desperately sought out cash once again, this time for postwar reconstruction.
Tensions with Kuwait
The end of the war with Iran served to deepen latent tensions between Iraq and its wealthy neighbor Kuwait. Saddam urged the Kuwaitis to forgive the Iraqi debt accumulated in the war, some $30 billion, but they refused.[52]
Saddam pushed oil-exporting countries to raise oil prices by cutting back production; Kuwait refused, however. In addition to refusing the request, Kuwait spearheaded the opposition in OPEC to the cuts that Saddam had requested. Kuwait was pumping large amounts of oil, and thus keeping prices low, when Iraq needed to sell high-priced oil from its wells to pay off a huge debt.
Saddam had always argued that Kuwait was historically an integral part of Iraq, and that Kuwait had only come into being through the maneuverings of British imperialism; this echoed a belief that Iraqi nationalists had voiced for the past 50 years. This belief was one of the few articles of faith uniting the political scene in a nation rife with sharp social, ethnic, religious, and ideological divides.[52]
The extent of Kuwaiti oil reserves also intensified tensions in the region. The oil reserves of Kuwait (with a population of 2 million next to Iraq’s 25) were roughly equal to those of Iraq. Taken together, Iraq and Kuwait sat on top of some 20 percent of the world’s known oil reserves; as an article of comparison, Saudi Arabia holds 25 percent.[52]
Saddam complained to the U.S. State Department that Kuwait had slant drilled oil out of wells that Iraq considered to be within its disputed border with Kuwait. Saddam still had an experienced and well-equipped army, which he used to influence regional affairs. He later ordered troops to the Iraq–Kuwait border.
As Iraq-Kuwait relations rapidly deteriorated, Saddam was receiving conflicting information about how the U.S. would respond to the prospects of an invasion. For one, Washington had been taking measures to cultivate a constructive relationship with Iraq for roughly a decade. The Reagan administration gave Saddam roughly $40 billion in aid in the 1980s to fight Iran, nearly all of it on credit. The U.S. also gave Saddam billions of dollars to keep him from forming a strong alliance with the Soviets.[53] Saddam’s Iraq became “the third-largest recipient of U.S. assistance”.[54]
U.S. ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie met with Saddam in an emergency meeting on 25 July 1990, where the Iraqi leader stated his intention to give negotiations only… one more brief chance before forcing Iraq’s claims on Kuwait.[55] U.S. officials attempted to maintain a conciliatory line with Iraq, indicating that while George H. W. Bush and James Baker did not want force used, they would not take any position on the Iraq–Kuwait boundary dispute and did not want to become involved.[56] Whatever Glaspie did or did not say in her interview with Saddam, the Iraqis assumed that the United States had invested too much in building relations with Iraq over the 1980s to sacrifice them for Kuwait.[57] Later, Iraq and Kuwait met for a final negotiation session, which failed. Saddam then sent his troops into Kuwait. As tensions between Washington and Saddam began to escalate, the Soviet Union, under Mikhail Gorbachev, strengthened its military relationship with the Iraqi leader, providing him military advisers, arms and aid.[58]
On 2 August 1990, Saddam invaded Kuwait, initially claiming assistance to “Kuwaiti revolutionaries,” thus sparking an international crisis. On 4 August an Iraqi-backed “Provisional Government of Free Kuwait” was proclaimed, but a total lack of legitimacy and support for it led to an 8 August announcement of a “merger” of the two countries. On 28 August Kuwait formally became the 19thGovernorate of Iraq. Just two years after the 1988 Iraq and Iran truce, “Saddam Hussein did what his Gulf patrons had earlier paid him to prevent.” Having removed the threat of Iranian fundamentalism he “overran Kuwait and confronted his Gulf neighbors in the name of Arab nationalism and Islam.”[45]
When later asked why he invaded Kuwait, Saddam first claimed that it was because Kuwait was rightfully Iraq’s 19th province and then said “When I get something into my head I act. That’s just the way I am.”[23] With Saddam’s seizure of Kuwait in August 1990 an UN coalition led by the United States drove Iraq’s troops from Kuwait in February 1991. The ability for Saddam Hussein to pursue such military aggression was from a “military machine paid for in large part by the tens of billions of dollars Kuwait and the Gulf states had poured into Iraq and the weapons and technology provided by the Soviet Union, Germany, and France.”[45]
Shortly before he invaded Kuwait, he shipped 100 new Mercedes 200 Series cars to top editors in Egypt and Jordan. Two days before the first attacks, Saddam reportedly offered Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak 50 million dollars in cash, “ostensibly for grain”.[59]
U.S. President George H. W. Bush responded cautiously for the first several days. On one hand, Kuwait, prior to this point, had been a virulent enemy of Israel and was the Persian Gulf monarchy that had had the most friendly relations with the Soviets.[60] On the other hand, Washington foreign policymakers, along with Middle East experts, military critics, and firms heavily invested in the region, were extremely concerned with stability in this region.[61] The invasion immediately triggered fears that the world’s price of oil, and therefore control of the world economy, was at stake. Britain profited heavily from billions of dollars of Kuwaiti investments and bank deposits. Bush was perhaps swayed while meeting with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who happened to be in the U.S. at the time.[62]
Co-operation between the United States and the Soviet Union made possible the passage of resolutions in the United Nations Security Council giving Iraq a deadline to leave Kuwait and approving the use of force if Saddam did not comply with the timetable. U.S. officials feared Iraqi retaliation against oil-rich Saudi Arabia, since the 1940s a close ally of Washington, for the Saudis’ opposition to the invasion of Kuwait. Accordingly, the U.S. and a group of allies, including countries as diverse as Egypt, Syria and Czechoslovakia, deployed a massive amount of troops along the Saudi border with Kuwait and Iraq in order to encircle the Iraqi army, the largest in the Middle East.
Saddam’s officers looted Kuwait, stripping even the marble from its palaces to move it to Saddam’s own palace.[7]
During the period of negotiations and threats following the invasion, Saddam focused renewed attention on the Palestinian problem by promising to withdraw his forces from Kuwait if Israel would relinquish the occupied territories in the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Gaza Strip. Saddam’s proposal further split the Arab world, pitting U.S.- and Western-supported Arab states against the Palestinians. The allies ultimately rejected any linkage between the Kuwait crisis and Palestinian issues.
Saddam ignored the Security Council deadline. Backed by the Security Council, a U.S.-led coalition launched round-the-clock missile and aerial attacks on Iraq, beginning 16 January 1991. Israel, though subjected to attack by Iraqi missiles, refrained from retaliating in order not to provoke Arab states into leaving the coalition. A ground force consisting largely of U.S. and British armoured and infantry divisions ejected Saddam’s army from Kuwait in February 1991 and occupied the southern portion of Iraq as far as the Euphrates.
On 6 March 1991, Bush announced:
“
What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea — a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law.
”
In the end, the over-manned and under-equipped Iraqi army proved unable to compete on the battlefield with the highly mobile coalition land forces and their overpowering air support. Some 175,000 Iraqis were taken prisoner and casualties were estimated at over 85,000. As part of the cease-fire agreement, Iraq agreed to scrap all poison gas and germ weapons and allow UN observers to inspect the sites. UN trade sanctions would remain in effect until Iraq complied with all terms. Saddam publicly claimed victory at the end of the war.
Postwar period
Iraq’s ethnic and religious divisions, together with the brutality of the conflict that this had engendered, laid the groundwork for postwar rebellions. In the aftermath of the fighting, social and ethnic unrest among Shi’ite Muslims, Kurds, and dissident military units threatened the stability of Saddam’s government. Uprisings erupted in the Kurdish north and Shi’a southern and central parts of Iraq, but were ruthlessly repressed.
The United States, which had urged Iraqis to rise up against Saddam, did nothing to assist the rebellions. The Iranians, despite the widespread Shi’ite rebellions, had no interest in provoking another war, while Turkey opposed any prospect of Kurdish independence, and the Saudis and other conservative Arab states feared an Iran-style Shi’ite revolution. Saddam, having survived the immediate crisis in the wake of defeat, was left firmly in control of Iraq, although the country never recovered either economically or militarily from the Gulf War. Saddam routinely cited his survival as “proof” that Iraq had in fact won the war against the U.S. This message earned Saddam a great deal of popularity in many sectors of the Arab world. John Esposito, however, claims that “Arabs and Muslims were pulled in two directions. That they rallied not so much to Saddam Hussein as to the bipolar nature of the confrontation (the West versus the Arab Muslim world) and the issues that Saddam proclaimed: Arab unity, self-sufficiency, and social justice.” As a result, Saddam Hussein appealed to many people for the same reasons that attracted more and more followers to Islamic revivalism and also for the same reasons that fueled anti-Western feelings. “As one U.S. Muslim observer noted: People forgot about Saddam’s record and concentrated on America … Saddam Hussein might be wrong, but it is not America who should correct him.” A shift was, therefore, clearly visible among many Islamic movements in the post war period “from an initial Islamic ideological rejection of Saddam Hussein, the secular persecutor of Islamic movements, and his invasion of Kuwait to a more populist Arab nationalist, anti-imperialist support for Saddam (or more precisely those issues he represented or championed) and the condemnation of foreign intervention and occupation.”[45]
Saddam, therefore, increasingly portrayed himself as a devout Muslim, in an effort to co-opt the conservative religious segments of society. Some elements of Sharia law were re-introduced, and the ritual phrase “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”), in Saddam’s handwriting, was added to the national flag. Saddam also commissioned the production of a “Blood Qur’an“, written using 27 litres of his own blood, to thank God for saving him from various dangers and conspiracies.[63]
Relations between the United States and Iraq remained tense following the Gulf War. The U.S. launched a missile attack aimed at Iraq’s intelligence headquarters in Baghdad 26 June 1993, citing evidence of repeated Iraqi violations of the “no fly zones” imposed after the Gulf War and for incursions into Kuwait.
The United Nations sanctions placed upon Iraq when it invaded Kuwait were not lifted, blocking Iraqi oil exports. This caused immense hardship in Iraq and virtually destroyed the Iraqi economy and state infrastructure. Only smuggling across the Syrian border, and humanitarian aid ameliorated the humanitarian crisis.[64] On 9 December 1996 the UN allowed Saddam’s government to begin selling limited amounts of oil for food and medicine. Limited amounts of income from the United Nations started flowing into Iraq through the United Nations Oil for Food program.
U.S. officials continued to accuse Saddam of violating the terms of the Gulf War’s cease fire, by developing weapons of mass destruction and other banned weaponry, and violating the UN-imposed sanctions. Also during the 1990s, President Bill Clinton maintained sanctions and ordered air strikes in the “Iraqi no-fly zones” (Operation Desert Fox), in the hope that Saddam would be overthrown by political enemies inside Iraq. Western charges of Iraqi resistance to UN access to suspected weapons were the pretext for crises between 1997 and 1998, culminating in intensive U.S. and British missile strikes on Iraq, 16–19 December 1998. After two years of intermittent activity, U.S. and British warplanes struck harder at sites near Baghdad in February 2001.
Saddam’s support base of Tikriti tribesmen, family members, and other supporters was divided after the war, and in the following years, contributing to the government’s increasingly repressive and arbitrary nature. Domestic repression inside Iraq grew worse, and Saddam’s sons, Uday and Qusay Hussein, became increasingly powerful and carried out a private reign of terror.
Iraqi co-operation with UN weapons inspection teams was intermittent throughout the 1990s.
Saddam continued involvement in politics abroad. Video tapes retrieved after show his intelligence chiefs meeting with Arab journalists, including a meeting with the former managing director of Al-Jazeera, Mohammed Jassem al-Ali, in 2000. In the video Saddam’s son Uday advised al-Ali about hires in Al-Jazeera: “During your last visit here along with your colleagues we talked about a number of issues, and it does appear that you indeed were listening to what I was saying since changes took place and new faces came on board such as that lad, Mansour.” He was later sacked by Al-Jazeera.[65]
In 2002 Austrian prosecutors investigated Saddam government’s transactions with Fritz Edlinger that possibly violated Austrian money laundering and embargo regulations.[66] Fritz Edlinger, president of the General Secretary of the Society for Austro-Arab relations (GÖAB) and a former member of Socialist International‘s Middle East Committee, was an outspoken supporter of Saddam Hussein. In 2005 an Austrian journalist revealed that Fritz Edlinger’s GÖAB had received $100,000 from an Iraqi front company as well as donations from Austrian companies soliciting business in Iraq.[67]
In 2002, a resolution sponsored by the European Union was adopted by the Commission for Human Rights, which stated that there had been no improvement in the human rights crisis in Iraq. The statement condemned President Saddam Hussein’s government for its “systematic, widespread and extremely grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law“. The resolution demanded that Iraq immediately put an end to its “summary and arbitrary executions … the use of rape as a political tool and all enforced and involuntary disappearances”.[68]
In the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme, Saddam was supposed to trade oil for food. In practice, the program benefitted political parties, politicians, journalists, companies, and individuals around the world.
The Russian state was the largest beneficiary.[69]
Satellite channels broadcasting the besieged Iraqi leader among cheering crowds as U.S.-led troops push toward the capital city.[70]
4 April 2003.
The international community, especially the U.S., continued to view Saddam as a bellicose tyrant who was a threat to the stability of the region. After the September 11 attacks, Vladimir Putin began to tell the United States that Iraq was preparing terrorist attacks against the United States.[71] In his January 2002 state of the union address to Congress, President George W. Bush spoke of an “axis of evil” consisting of Iran, North Korea, and Iraq. Moreover, Bush announced that he would possibly take action to topple the Iraqi government, because of the threat of its weapons of mass destruction. Bush stated that “The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade … Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror.”[72][73] Saddam Hussein claimed that he falsely led the world to believe Iraq possessed nuclear weapons in order to appear strong against Iran.[74]
With war looming on 24 February 2003, Saddam Hussein took part in an interview with CBS News reporter Dan Rather. Talking for more than three hours, he expressed a wish to have a live televised debate with George W. Bush, which was declined. It was his first interview with a U.S. reporter in over a decade.[75] CBS aired the taped interview later that week.
The Iraqi government and military collapsed within three weeks of the beginning of the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq on 20 March. By the beginning of April, U.S.-led forces occupied much of Iraq. The resistance of the much-weakened Iraqi Army either crumbled or shifted to guerrilla tactics, and it appeared that Saddam had lost control of Iraq. He was last seen in a video which purported to show him in the Baghdad suburbs surrounded by supporters. When Baghdad fell to U.S-led forces on 9 April, marked symbolically by the toppling of his statue by iconoclasts,[76] Saddam was nowhere to be found.
Photograph taken by American soldiers during Saddam’s capture.
Saddam shortly after capture by American forces, and after being shaved to confirm his identity
In April 2003, Saddam’s whereabouts remained in question during the weeks following the fall of Baghdad and the conclusion of the major fighting of the war. Various sightings of Saddam were reported in the weeks following the war, but none was authenticated. At various times Saddam released audio tapes promoting popular resistance to his ousting.
Saddam was placed at the top of the U.S. list of “most-wanted Iraqis“. In July 2003, his sons Uday and Qusay and 14-year-old grandson Mustapha were killed in a three-hour[77] gunfight with U.S. forces.
On 13 December 2003, Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces at a farmhouse in ad-Dawr near Tikrit in a hole in Operation Red Dawn. Following his capture on 13 December Saddam was transported to a U.S. base near Tikrit, and later taken to the U.S. base near Baghdad. The day after his capture he was reportedly visited by longtime opponents such as Ahmed Chalabi.[citation needed]
On 14 December 2003, U.S. administrator in Iraq L. Paul Bremer confirmed that Saddam Hussein had indeed been captured at a farmhouse in ad-Dawr near Tikrit.[78] Bremer presented video footage of Saddam in custody.
Saddam was shown with a full beard and hair longer than his familiar appearance. He was described by U.S. officials as being in good health. Bremer reported plans to put Saddam on trial, but claimed that the details of such a trial had not yet been determined. Iraqis and Americans who spoke with Saddam after his capture generally reported that he remained self-assured, describing himself as a “firm, but just leader.”[citation needed]
British tabloid newspaper The Sun posted a picture of Saddam wearing white briefs on the front cover of a newspaper. Other photographs inside the paper show Saddam washing his trousers, shuffling, and sleeping. The United States Government stated that it considers the release of the pictures a violation of the Geneva Convention, and that it would investigate the photographs.[79][80] During this period Hussein was interrogated by FBI agent George Piro.[81]
The guards at the Baghdad detention facility called their prisoner “Vic,” and let him plant a little garden near his cell. The nickname and the garden are among the details about the former Iraqi leader that emerged during a 27 March 2008 tour of prison of the Baghdad cell where Saddam slept, bathed, and kept a journal in the final days before his execution.[82]
On 30 June 2004, Saddam Hussein, held in custody by U.S. forces at the U.S. base “Camp Cropper“, along with 11 other senior Baathist leaders, were handed over legally (though not physically) to the interim Iraqi government to stand trial for crimes against humanity and other offences.
A few weeks later, he was charged by the Iraqi Special Tribunal with crimes committed against residents of Dujail in 1982, following a failed assassination attempt against him. Specific charges included the murder of 148 people, torture of women and children and the illegal arrest of 399 others.[83][84]
Saddam and his lawyers’ contesting the court’s authority and maintaining that he was still the President of Iraq.[85]
The assassinations and attempts on the lives of several of Saddam’s lawyers.
The replacement of the chief presiding judge, midway through the trial.
On 5 November 2006, Saddam Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging. Saddam’s half brother, Barzan Ibrahim, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court in 1982, were convicted of similar charges. The verdict and sentencing were both appealed, but subsequently affirmed by Iraq’s Supreme Court of Appeals.[86] On 30 December 2006, Saddam was hanged.[10]
Saddam was hanged on the first day of Eid ul-Adha, 30 December 2006, despite his wish to be shot (which he felt would be more dignified).[87] The execution was carried out at Camp Justice, an Iraqi army base in Kadhimiya, a neighborhood of northeast Baghdad.
The execution was videotaped on a mobile phone and his captors could be heard insulting Saddam. The video was leaked to electronic media and posted on the Internet within hours, becoming the subject of global controversy.[88] It was later claimed by the head guard at the tomb where his body remains that Saddam’s body was stabbed six times after the execution.[89]
Not long before the execution, Saddam’s lawyers released his last letter. The following includes several excerpts:
“
To the great nation, to the people of our country, and humanity,Many of you have known the writer of this letter to be faithful, honest, caring for others, wise, of sound judgment, just, decisive, careful with the wealth of the people and the state … and that his heart is big enough to embrace all without discrimination.You have known your brother and leader very well and he never bowed to the despots and, in accordance with the wishes of those who loved him, remained a sword and a banner.This is how you want your brother, son or leader to be … and those who will lead you (in the future) should have the same qualifications.Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if He wants, He will send it to heaven with the martyrs, or, He will postpone that … so let us be patient and depend on Him against the unjust nations.
Remember that God has enabled you to become an example of love, forgiveness and brotherly coexistence … I call on you not to hate, because hate does not leave a space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking and keeps away one from balanced thinking and making the right choice.
I also call on you not to hate the peoples of the other countries that attacked us and differentiate between the decision-makers and peoples. Anyone who repents — whether in Iraq or abroad — you must forgive him.
You should know that among the aggressors, there are people who support your struggle against the invaders, and some of them volunteered for the legal defence of prisoners, including Saddam Hussein … some of these people wept profusely when they said goodbye to me.
Dear faithful people, I say goodbye to you, but I will be with the merciful God who helps those who take refuge in him and who will never disappoint any faithful, honest believer … God is Great … God is great … Long live our nation … Long live our great struggling people … Long live Iraq, long live Iraq … Long live Palestine … Long live jihad and the mujahedeen.
Saddam Hussein President and Commander in Chief of the Iraqi Mujahed Armed Forces
Additional clarification note:
I have written this letter, because the lawyers told me that the so-called criminal court — established and named by the invaders — will allow the so-called defendants the chance for a last word. But that court and its chief judge did not give us the chance to say a word, and issued its verdict without explanation and read out the sentence — dictated by the invaders — without presenting the evidence. I wanted the people to know this.[90]
”
— Letter by Saddam Hussein
A second unofficial video, apparently showing Saddam’s body on a trolley, emerged several days later. It sparked speculation that the execution was carried out incorrectly as Saddam Hussein had a gaping hole in his neck.[91]
Saddam was buried at his birthplace of Al-Awja in Tikrit, Iraq, 3 km (2 mi) from his sons Uday and Qusay Hussein, on 31 December 2006.[92]
Saddam married his first wife and cousin Sajida Talfah (or Tulfah/Tilfah)[93] in 1958[94] in an arranged marriage. Sajida is the daughter of Khairallah Talfah, Saddam’s uncle and mentor. Their marriage was arranged for Hussein at age five when Sajida was seven. They were married in Egypt during his exile. The couple had five children.[93]
Uday Hussein (18 June 1964 – 22 July 2003), was Saddam’s oldest son, who ran the Iraqi Football Association, Fedayeen Saddam, and several media corporations in Iraq including Iraqi TV and the newspaper Babel. Uday, while originally Saddam’s favorite son and raised to succeed him he eventually fell out of favour with his father due to his erratic behavior; he was responsible for many car crashes and rapes around Baghdad, constant feuds with other members of his family, and killing his father’s favorite valet and food taster Kamel Hana Gegeo at a party in Egypt honoring Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak. He became well known in the west for his involvement in looting Kuwait during the Gulf War, allegedly taking millions of dollars worth of Gold, cars, and medical supplies (which was in short supply at the time) for himself and close supporters. He was widely known for his paranoia and his obsession with torturing people who disappointed him in any way, which included tardy girlfriends, friends who disagreed with him and, most notoriously, Iraqi athletes who performed poorly. He was briefly married to Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri‘s daughter, but later divorced her. The couple had no children.
Qusay Hussein (17 May 1966 – 22 July 2003), was Saddam’s second — and, after the mid-1990s, his favorite — son. Qusay was believed to have been Saddam’s later intended successor, as he was less erratic than his older brother and kept a low profile. He was second in command of the military (behind his father) and ran the elite Iraqi Republican Guard and the SSO. He was believed to have ordered the army to kill thousands of rebelling Marsh Arabs and was instrumental in suppressing Shi’ite rebellions in the mid-1990s. He was married once and had three children.
Raghad Hussein (born 2 September 1968) is Saddam’s oldest daughter. After the war, Raghad fled to Amman, Jordan where she received sanctuary from the royal family. She is currently wanted by the Iraqi Government for allegedly financing and supporting the insurgency and the now banned Iraqi Ba’ath Party.[95][96] The Jordanian royal family refused to hand her over.
Rana Hussein (born c. 1969), is Saddam’s second daughter. She, like her sister, fled to Jordan and has stood up for her father’s rights. She was married to Saddam Kamel and has had four children from this marriage.
Hala Hussein (born c. 1972), is Saddam’s third and youngest daughter. Very little information is known about her. Her father arranged for her to marry General Kamal Mustafa Abdallah Sultan al-Tikriti in 1998. She fled with her children and sisters to Jordan.
Saddam married his second wife, Samira Shahbandar,[93] in 1986. She was originally the wife of an Iraqi Airways executive, but later became the mistress of Saddam. Eventually, Saddam forced Samira’s husband to divorce her so he could marry her.[93] There have been no political issues from this marriage. After the war, Samira fled to Beirut, Lebanon. She is believed to have mothered Hussein’s sixth child.[93] Members of Hussein’s family have denied this.
Saddam had allegedly married a third wife, Nidal al-Hamdani, the general manager of the Solar Energy Research Center in the Council of Scientific Research.[97]
Wafa el-Mullah al-Howeish is rumoured to have married Saddam as his fourth wife in 2002. There is no firm evidence for this marriage. Wafa is the daughter of Abdul Tawab el-Mullah Howeish, a former minister of military industry in Iraq and Saddam’s last deputy Prime Minister.
In August 1995, Raghad and her husband Hussein Kamel al-Majid and Rana and her husband, Saddam Kamel al-Majid, defected to Jordan, taking their children with them. They returned to Iraq when they received assurances that Saddam would pardon them. Within three days of their return in February 1996, both of the Kamel brothers were attacked and killed in a gunfight with other clan members who considered them traitors.
In August 2003, Saddam’s daughters Raghad and Rana received sanctuary in Amman, Jordan, where they are currently staying with their nine children. That month, they spoke with CNN and the Arab satellite station Al-Arabiya in Amman. When asked about her father, Raghad told CNN, “He was a very good father, loving, has a big heart.” Asked if she wanted to give a message to her father, she said: “I love you and I miss you.” Her sister Rana also remarked, “He had so many feelings and he was very tender with all of us.”[98]
Above : Sue Tilley standing alongside Lucian Freud’s £35.8 Million painting of herself entitled ” Benefit Supervisor Resting”
ABOVE : LEFT TO RIGHT … A PERSONALLY INSCRIBED AND SIGNED PORTRAIT COPY OF THE LUCIAN FREUD PAINTING SOLD FOR £35 MILLION . THE MIDDLE PICTURE SHOWS A BRA OWNED AND WORN BY SUE , THIS BEING COMPLETE WITH HAND DRAWN AND SIGNED “HIS AND HER’S DOODLE SCRIBBLES” ON THE CUPS OF THE BRA . ( NOW POSSIBLY ONE OF THE MOST EXPENSIVE BRA’S IN THE WORLD ????) THIS BRA IS ON PERMANENT DISPLAY HERE AT LITTLDEAN JAIL . ON THE RIGHT IS A PHOTO OF ANDY JONES FROM LITTLEDEAN JAIL WITH SUE AT A LONDON ART EXHIBITION EVENT
Below: Freud’s Painting of a Jobcentre Clerk breaks his record : “Benefits Supervisor Resting” sells at auction for a staggering £35.8 Million
BELOW IS A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL PAINTING PREVIOUSLY INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY SUE TILLEY FOR DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL
A Lucian Freud painting of a voluptuous Jobcentre clerk has set a world record for the artist by selling for more than £35million.Benefits Supervisor Resting went under the hammer for £35.8million at Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art evening sale in Manhattan yesterday.The 1994 painting, which shows 280-pound Sue Tilley sitting naked on a sofa, was sold to London art dealer Pilar Ordovas on behalf of an anonymous buyer.Miss Tilley became Freud’s muse in the early Nineties, posing for £20 a day. Freud, who died in 2011, painted Miss Tilly – who he nicknamed ‘Fat Sue’ – four times.
Benefits Supervisor Sleeping is a 1995 oil on canvas painting by Lucian Freud depicting an obese, naked woman lying on a couch. It is a portrait of Sue Tilley, then weighing about 127 kg, a Job Centre supervisor. Tilley is the author of a biography of the Australian performer Leigh Bowery titled “Leigh Bowery, The Life and Times of an Icon”. Tilley was introduced to Freud by Bowery, who was already modelling for him. Freud painted a number of large portraits of her around the period 1994-96, and came to call her “Big Sue”. He said of her body “It’s flesh without muscle and it has developed a different kind of texture through bearing such a weight-bearing thing”.
The painting held the world record for the highest price paid for a painting by a living artist, of US$33.6 million (£17.2 million). It was sold at Christie’s in New York in May 2008 to Roman Abramovich.
Above: Andy Jones and Sue Tilley at an art exhibition in London .
ABOVE AND BELOW : VARIOUS HAND SIGNED EXHIBIT PIECES FROM SUE TILLEY ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL , ALONG WITH HER BRA
ABOVE: SUE WITH HER CLOTHES ON
BELOW ARE SOME PHOTOGRAPHS OF A GREAT “TONGUE IN CHEEK” PERSONALLY OWNED AND WORN XXL BRA SIGNED ALONG WITH A HAND DRAWN DOODLE OF A “HIS AND HERS FACE ” …. ALSO HERE ON DISPLAY
SUE TILLEY’S HANDS DRAWN BY HERSELF FOR DISPLAY HERE WHILST SAT DOWN IN AN INDIAN RESTAURANT IN LONDON FOR A MEAL AND CHAT
Benefits Supervisor Sleeping is a 1995 oil on canvas painting by Lucian Freud depicting an obese, naked woman lying on a couch. It is a portrait of Sue Tilley, then weighing about 127 kg, a Job Centre supervisor. Tilley is the author of a biography of the Australian performer Leigh Bowery titled “Leigh Bowery, The Life and Times of an Icon”. Tilley was introduced to Freud by Bowery, who was already modelling for him. Freud painted a number of large portraits of her around the period 1994-96, and came to call her “Big Sue”. He said of her body “It’s flesh without muscle and it has developed a different kind of texture through bearing such a weight-bearing thing”.
The painting held the world record for the highest price paid for a painting by a living artist, of US$33.6 million (£17.2 million). It was sold at Christie’s in New York in May 2008 to Roman Abramovich.
The painting was exhibited twice at Flowers Gallery: 1996: Naked – Flowers East at London Fields 1997: British Figurative Art – Part 1: Painting at Flowers East
Private: Lucian Freud spoke candidly about his gambling problem
Artist Lucian Freud ran up half a million pounds in gambling debts with gangland crimelords the Kray brothers.
Britain’s most renowned living artist said the brothers ‘forced’ money on him to feed his addiction, but he was only able to repay them in small amounts.
The 87-year-old confessed he once cancelled an exhibition out of fear they would demand more money if they saw he was earning.
The situation got so bad that at one point he received a warning from the police.
In a revealing interview, the notoriously private artist discussed the nights he spent in police cells for fighting, his relationship with Kate Moss and how he escorted Greta Garbo to nightclubs.
‘She was the most famous person in the world at that stage. I was very young, she was in her late thirties,’ he said of the actress.
‘The people in the clubs could not believe it.’
He said of Kate Moss, whom he met through his fashion designer daughter Bella: ‘She was interesting company and full of surprising behaviour,’ said Freud, who in 2002 painted a portrait of the heavily-pregnant and naked model in 2002.
In an interview with the Evening Standard, he said he was sometimes annoyed when Miss Moss was late for sittings ‘only in that way that girls are’.
He believes the painting was unsuccessful because photographers waited outside his house, disturbing his obsession with privacy.
Freud had a well-documented relationship with the Kray twins Reggie and Ronnie – with Reggie counting Freud amongst his favourite painters.
Club owner: Reggie Kray, centre, with Eddie Pucci, Frank Sinatra’s bodyguard and Shirley Bassey in the early Sixties
Their paths crossed in the swinging Sixties demi-monde of West End nightclub life.
As club owners the Krays mixed with politicians and great entertainers of the day including Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland Shirley Bassey and Barbara Windsor.
The artist once said of his gambling: ‘I always went all out. The idea of it being a sport seemed to me insane. The thing I liked was risking everything. Losing everything to do with money.’
A self-portrait of Freud nursing a black eye after a punch-up with a taxi driver sold for more than £2.8million last month
He also explained his reasons for stopping gambling: ‘As I got more money, they wouldn’t take the bets and it just became pointless.
‘If I’d been in very high-powered card games with grand, rich people, perhaps, but that wasn’t what I did.’
The artist also disclosed he has four new muses: he is painting his assistant David Dawson; artist and printmaker Perienne Christian, 26; and two restaurateurs – Jeremy King, co-owner of The Wolseley where Freud frequently eats, and Sally Clarke, owner of Clarke’s in Kensington.
Artist and gambler: Freud in 1958
Freud is the grandson of Sigmund Freud and was born in Berlin where, at the age of nine, he photographed Hitler.
The family moved to England in 1933 to escape the rise of Nazism, and became British citizens six years later.
Freud reveals their naturalisation was made possible by the intervention of the Duke of Kent.
Freud’s painting Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, a life-size portrait of Jobcentre worker Sue Tilley, sold for £17.2million in 2008.
It set the world record for the highest price paid in an auction for a work of art by a living artist.
He remains ambitious though, adding: I work every day and night. I don’t do anything else. There is no point otherwise.’
This month, a self-portrait of Freud nursing a black eye after a punch-up with a taxi driver sold for more than £2.8million at auction.
The artist has previously discussed his habit of getting into scrapes, saying: ‘I used to have a lot of fights.
‘It wasn’t because I liked fighting, it was really just that people said things to me to which I felt the only reply was to hit them.
CELEBRITY TRAGEDIES, SLEAZE , SCANDAL AND MUCH MORE… HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL
Amy Jade Winehouse (14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011)
SHE DIED TOO YOUNG
WELL WORN, BLOODSTAINED BALLET PUMPS (SHOES) FROM AMY WINEHOUSE…. HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL ALONG WITH OTHER PERSONALLY SIGNED PHOTOGRAPHS PROVIDING AN INSIGHT INTO THE LIFE AND DEATH OF THIS ICONIC STAR.
BELOW IS A WELL WORN HAIR EXTENSION PIECE FROM AMY WINEHOUSE WHICH IS ALSO ON DISPLAY HERE AT THE JAIL
HERE ARE VARIOUS AUTHENTIC SIGNED PHOTOGRAPHS PREVIOUSLY ACQUIRED DIRECTLY FROM AMY WINEHOUSE WHICH ARE ALL ON DISPLAY WITHIN VARIOUS MONTAGES THAT TOUCH UPON THE LIFE, TIMES AND DEATH OF THIS SADLY TRAGIC ICONIC AND HIGHLY TALENTED SONGSTRESS .
A GREAT TRACK AND VIDEO FROM THE LATE GREAT LADY – AMY WINEHOUSE PERFORMING HER CLASSIC 2006 HIT – BACK TO BLACK
THE INFAMOUS 27 CLUB…….. FREAKY COINCIDENCE -2009 PREDICTION THAT AMY WINEHOUSE COULD WELL JOIN OTHER LEGENDARY MUSIC ICONS IN THE THE 27 CLUB (AMY WINEHOUSE DIES 23RD JULY AT THE YOUNG AGE OF 27 ) THE PROGRAMME GOES ON TO EXAMINE OTHER CELEBRITY CURSES AND DEATHS . SEE ALL VIDEO FOOTAGE BELOW FOR SOME FASCINATING INTERACTIVE MATERIAL …..” WELL WORTH WATCHING “
Amy Winehouse, 27, found dead at her London flat after suspected ‘drug overdose’
Troubled singer had a long battle with drink and drugs
London Ambulance Service found singer at 3.54pm but unable to revive her
She was ‘beyond help’ according to Sky sources
Autopsy could take place ‘within next 24 hours’
Comes after Winehouse was booed off stage after shambolic Serbian show
Amy Winehouse has been found dead at her home in London.
The Back To Black singer was found at the property by emergency services at 3.54pm, and it’s believed Winehouse’s death was due to a suspected drug overdose.
Winehouse was apparently ‘beyond help’ when paramedics arrived, according to Sky sources.
Sources have also claimed Winehouse’s death was due to a drug overdose.
Passing: Amy Winehouse has been found dead at her home this afternoon
The scene: Amy was pronounced dead yesterday afternoon after emergency services arrived at her house in north London
Tragic: Winehouse’s body is seen being removed from her home
Drama: Members of the press and local residents watch as Winehouse’s body is taken to the van
WITHIN MINUTES 20M WERE TALKING TO EACH OTHER ON TWITTER ABOUT THE SINGER’S SUDDEN DEATH
Before it was announced on mainstream media the micro-blogging site was responding to the death of the singer and ‘Amy Winehouse’ quickly became one of Twitter’s ‘trending’ topics.
Trending refers to whichever names or terms are the most talked about at that particular moment. These are defined by the site as ‘most breaking’ topics.
Unlike topics which are discussed for a length of time, such as the phone hacking scandal, trending topics see huge numbers of Twitter users debating subjects as they happen.
Shortly after the confirmation of her death, Winehouse was mentioned in nearly 10 per cent of all tweets worldwide. As there are 200million users this equates to 20million people communicating with one another about her death.
Two ambulance crews arrived at the scene within five minutes and a paramedic on a bicycle also attended, according to a spokeswoman.
‘Sadly the patient had died,’ she added.
A statement from Winehouse’s U.S. record label read: ‘We are deeply saddened at the sudden loss of such a gifted musician, artist and performer.
‘Our prayers go out to Amy’s family, friends and fans at this difficult time.’
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said: ‘Police were called by London Ambulance Service to an address in Camden Square NW1 shortly before 16.05hrs today, Saturday 23 July, following reports of a woman found deceased.
‘On arrival officers found the body of a 27-year-old female who was pronounced dead at the scene.
‘Enquiries continue into the circumstances of the death. At this early stage it is being treated as unexplained.’
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said in a press conference this evening that no cause of death had yet been confirmed.
He said: ‘I am aware of reports of a suspected drugs overdose, but I would like to reremphaise that no post-mortem has yet taken place and it would be inapproporaite to speculate on the cause of death.
‘The death of any person is a sad time of friends and family especially for someone known nationally and internationally like Amy Winehouse. My sympathy extends not only to her family but also to her millions of fans across the world.’
A spokesman for the late singer said: ‘Everyone involved with Amy is shocked and devastated.
‘Our thoughts are with her family and friends. The family will issue a statement when ready.’
It has also been claimed on gossip website RadarOnline.com that Winehouse’s autopsy could take place within the next 24 hours.
Last public appearance: Amy joined goddaughter Dionne Bromfield on stage during the iTunes festival on Wednesday night
Healthy: Amy was spotted out in London looking healthier earlier this month
A Scotland Yard spokesman is quoted by the website as saying: ‘The postmortem has not been scheduled yet but it is unlikely to take place before tomorrow.
‘In the case of a murder it can be done within hours but this is not the case so tomorrow or even Monday is more likely in these circumstances.’
A section of the road where the singer lived remained cordoned off tonight. Journalists, local residents and fans gathered at the police tapes, while forensic officers were seen going in and out of the building.
One neighbour, who did not want to be named, said she saw the singer’s grief-stricken boyfriend, believed to be film director Reg Traviss, on the ground outside the house.
Two women then came ‘speeding’ up in a black Mercedes and walked in and out of the house crying. They said they believed the singer was at home last night.
Winehouse’s father, Mitch, is understood to be returning to the UK from New York. He had been due to perform at the Blue Note jazz club in the city on Monday.
A message has been placed on the club’s website, reading: ‘We are very sad to report that the Mitch Winehouse performance on Monday July 25th is cancelled due to the unexpected death of his daughter, Amy Winehouse.
‘Our condolences go out to Mitch and his family.’ Mitch is now on his way back from New York.
Winehouse had been seen with her goddaughter Dionne Bromfield earlier this week as the teenager took to the stage at the iTunes festival.
She refused to join in for Mama Said, but did support the 14-year-old with a few dance moves before urging the crowd to buy Dionne’s new album Good For The Soul.
A source said: ‘Amy staggered onstage and grabbed the mic to beg the crowd to buy her protege’s new album.’
Winehouse’s appearance at the concert came after she cancelled her European tour following a disastrous performance in June when she stumbled onto the stage in Belgrade and gave an incoherent performance appearing very disorientated and removed from reality.
Unconfirmed: A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said the cause of death has yet to be confirmed
Mourning: Floral tributes are left outside Amy’s house as news breaks of her death
Heartfelt: One note from a local resident states how much the singer will be missed in her local community
Following the concert which saw fans enraged and the subsequent video that circulated to millions she cancelled the remaining dates of her European tour.
A statement released by the troubled singer’s spokesperson at the time said that the singer would be given ‘as long as it takes’ to recover.
The statement read: ‘Amy Winehouse is withdrawing from all scheduled performances.
‘Everyone involved wishes to do everything they can to help her return to her best and she will be given as long as it takes for this to happen.’
Family: Amy with her father Mitch, to whom she was incredibly close, and her mother Janis
Shambolic: Amy was booed off stage during a shambolic performance in Belgrade in June
AMY AND BLAKE: A TROUBLED ROMANCE
Amy married Blake Fielder-Civil in Miami, Florida in 2007 but they were divorced two years later in September 2009.
From the beginning there relationship was fraught with difficulty as they struggled with addictions to crack cocaine and heroin. This led to numerous break-ups and ensuing make-ups.
Three months after they divorced speculation began to mount that they would one more marry. This was supported by the announcement on Facebook where they had both changed their relationship status to married.
But they never actually went ahead with it.
Fielder-Civil’s troubles continued and in June of this year was sentenced to 32 months in prison for burglary and possession of an imitation firearm.
Police caught the 29-year-old in a car in February with an altered number plate full of recently stolen possessions.
Winehouse had been working on her long-awaited new album, the follow-up to her 2006 breakthrough multi-million selling Back To Black, for the past three years.
The singer was born Amy Jade Winehouse on 14th September 1983 in Southgate, London.
Winehouse has had a troubled life which has included various stints in rehab for drug and alcohol addiction.
The singer is thought to have been to rehab four times.
In an interview in 2008, her mother Janis said she would be unsurprised if her daughter died before her time.
She said: ‘I’ve known for a long time that my daughter has problems.
‘But seeing it on screen rammed it home. I realise my daughter could be dead within the year. We’re watching her kill herself, slowly.
‘I’ve already come to terms with her dead. I’ve steeled myself to ask her what ground she wants to be buried in, which cemetery.
‘Because the drugs will get her if she stays on this road.
‘I look at Heath Ledger and Britney. She’s on their path. It’s like watching a car crash – this person throwing all these gifts away.’
In addition, there was a website set up called When Will Amy Winehouse Die?, with visitors asked to guess the date of death with the chance of winning an iPod Touch.
In an interview last October with Harper’s Bazaar magazine, Amy was asked if she was happy.
She replied: ‘I don’t know what you mean. I’ve got a very nice boyfriend. He’s very good to me.’
And, asked if she had any unfulfilled ambitions, Amy replied: ‘Nope! If I died tomorrow, I would be a happy girl.’
As well her battles with drugs and alcohol, Winehouse also had a troubled marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil, who she divorced in summer 2009.
Fielder-Civil and Winehouse married in 2007 in Miami.
The pair’s relationship – heavily documented by the media – saw them appearing in public bloodied and bruised after fights.
It is also alleged former music video producer Fielder-Civil was the one who introduced the Back to Black star to heroin and crack cocaine.
Amy’s father Mitch previously spoke out about how his daughter stayed away from drugs prior to meeting her ex-husband.
In a previous interview last year he said: ‘He’s not entirely responsible, she’s got to take a portion of the responsibility, but it’s clear, it really kicked off when they got together.’
Most recently, Winehouse was romantically linked to film director Reg Traviss, who she dated for a few months last year.
Weight worries: Amy also caused concern with her shrinking frame, and looked gaunt back in 2008 (right)
And Mitch also gave the new man his seal of approval.
In an interview with STV’s The Hour programme, he said: ‘I’m happy she’s got a new boyfriend. I’m happy that she’s moving on with her life.’
He said Traviss was a ‘very nice, normal bloke’. The pair split in January this year but quickly rekindled their relationship.
In March, Traviss said: ‘We’ve been together nearly a year now and we’re very happy. Amy’s doing well, she’s fine. She’s healthy and happy.’
AMY WINEHOUSE – THE LATEST MEMBER OF THE ’27 CLUB’
The singer’s tragic death at the age of 27 puts her in a pantheon of famous musicians who have all died at the same age.
Amy follows now joins the notorious 27 Club, also known as Forever 27, which is a group of musicians who have all died at the age while struggling to cope with fame.
Club members: Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison are among those who died at the age of 27
Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was the most recent victim and in 1994, pumped with heroin and valium, he turned a gun on himself.
Decades earlier Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Brian Jones all died at 27.
Rolling Stone Jones drowned in a swimming pool in 1969; Hendrix choked to death in 1970 after mixing wine with sleeping pills and singer Janis Joplin suffered a suspected heroin overdose the same year.
Doors star Morrison died of heart failure in 1971.
Winehouse has also caused controversy with her weight over the past few years. After hitting the music industry as a curvy role model, Winehouse then shed an astonishing amount of weight, leading to her looking gaunt in 2008.
Amy had a hugely successful musical career with the release of her debut album Frank in 2003, and the record considered her breakthrough album – Back To Black in 2006.
The singer featured on the Sunday Times Rich List earlier this year with an estimated net worth of around £6million.
During her career, Winehouse won awards including five Grammy Awards, a Q Music Award for Best Album for Back To Black and a World Music Award in 2008 for World’s Best Selling Pop/Rock Female Artist.
Finding love again: Amy is believed to have been dating film director Reg Traviss at the time of her death
Success: Amy performed via video link at the Grammy Awards in 2008 after winning five awards
The tragic loss of Amy Winehouse has robbed us of a young, if fatally troubled, life cut down in its prime. It has also cheated British music of a talent, at 27, whose best years surely still lay ahead.
As a homegrown singer, she was with without question the outstanding vocalist of her generation. Without Amy, there would have been no Adele, no Duffy and no Lady Gaga. She may have been an alumni of the Brit School, but Winehouse was also a British great.
In an era of manufactured stars and precision-tooled pop puppets, she was the real deal. For all her demons – and, sadly, sometimes because of them – she cut through pop’s hyperbole. Her rawness and emotional honesty harked back to an era when the best singers were more believable. For a white girl raised in the North London suburbs, she had the sweet, sure touch of an Aretha Franklin or Etta James.
Tragic loss: Amy Winehouse was a talented and much-loved singer and performer
Her talent was obvious from the off. The first time I saw her live was at the V Festival eight years ago. Tucked away at the bottom of the bill in one of the small tents, well away from the crowds gathering for headliners the Red Hot Chili Peppers, she oozed class. Dressed in a Fifties-style frock, playing a white Fender guitar, she showed nervous glimpses of a talent that would later wow the world.
I was lucky enough to interview her twice. The first time came shortly before the release of debut album Frank in 2003. Having met her in a photographic studio in Soho around lunchtime, we relocated, at Amy’s insistence, to her favourite local Italian cafe, where we enjoyed a lengthy chat over a large, non alcoholic lunch. She struck me then as a witty, intelligent young girl on the cusp of womanhood.
Full of joy: Amy performing at the start of her career back in 2004
She was full of the joys of life and understandably excited about her future.
Confident in her own abilities, she was gleefully irreverent. Whereas other singers, media-trained to within an inch of their lives, were masters in the art of diplomacy, she happily sounded off with little regard of the consequences.
Unconcerned about how her words might look in print, she dismissed her peers.
Dido and Norah Jones, huge at the time, were among her targets. They were ridiculed for being bland. She was savage, too, in her criticisms of Madonna.
She was naive, yes, but immensely likeable. A glowing review ensued.
Later, shortly before the release of second album Back To Black, I came face to face with a different Amy. Noticeably more slight than when we’d met three years previously, she turned up late in a coffee bar close to her North London home, but still turned heads with her long, raven black hair and striking eye-liner.
But, while some of that earlier youthful, sparkle had gone, she still struck me as a woman who knew exactly what she wanted. Perhaps more aware of her own flaws, she even retracted what she had said three years earlier about her fellow female stars. ‘When I was promoting my first album I was very defensive, so I lashed out a lot,’ she said. ‘But I won’t be saying anything negative about other singers now. They’ve got their job to do. I’m just happy to be doing my own thing.’ More mature in many ways, she was ready to let her music do the talking.
And Back To Black did just that. Rooted in emotional turmoil, it will go down as one of the classic British albums. Even now, in an era where female pop rules the charts in the shape of Adele, Beyoncé, Katy Perry and Gaga, nothing has come close to packing the sheer emotional punch of Back To Black. A departure from her jazzy debut, it was stark, simple and stunningly direct.
Musical stylings: Amy caused a stir with her first album Frank in 2004, and followed it with Back To Black in 2006
Musically, it was influenced heavily by Sixties girl groups such as The Shangri-Las and The Supremes. Lyrically, most notably on signature tune Rehab, it was clearly affected by the demons that were now troubling the singer. A far more commercial prospect than her eclectic debut, it went on to sell millions.
It won Grammys and Brits and established Amy as the pre-eminent soul girl of her age.
Despite her problems, the Amy I glimpsed during our brief encounters was different from her public persona. Nobody makes records as good and enduring as Frank and Back To Black without an intimate knowledge of the essential ingredients of great pop music. And Amy certainly had that in abundance.
For me, the most recent example of the way in which her talent truly touched people from all walks of life came in a conversation a few weeks ago with the great Tony Bennett, who sung with Amy on a track, Body And Soul, from his forthcoming duets album. As a singer who has worked with the best, from Frank Sinatra to Ella Fitzgerald, he had no doubt as to where Amy stood – she was one of the best. Remember her this way.
THE SEEMINGLY ALWAYS DRINK, DRUGS AND DEBAUCHED FUELLED WORLD OF A GREAT MANY OF OUR ICONIC TABLOID FAVOURITES…… MANY OF WHOM WE COVER AND TOUCH UPON WITHIN OUR DIVERSE MEMORABILIA COLLECTIONS HERE AT OUR POLITICALLY INCORRECT …. LITTLEDEAN JAIL
BELOW …. HERE IS SOME INTERACTIVE BACKGROUND FOOTAGE BEHIND SOME OF THE TABLOID SENSATIONALIST HEADLINES OF JUST A FEW OF THOSE WE COVER HERE
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Artist and gambler: Freud in 1958
Passing: Amy Winehouse has been found dead at her home this afternoon
The scene: Amy was pronounced dead yesterday afternoon after emergency services arrived at her house in north London
Tragic: Winehouse’s body is seen being removed from her home
Last public appearance: Amy joined goddaughter Dionne Bromfield on stage during the iTunes festival on Wednesday night
Unconfirmed: A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said the cause of death has yet to be confirmed
Mourning: Floral tributes are left outside Amy’s house as news breaks of her death
Heartfelt: One note from a local resident states how much the singer will be missed in her local community
Tragic loss: Amy Winehouse was a talented and much-loved singer and performer
Full of joy: Amy performing at the start of her career back in 2004
THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION .... HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN , GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UK 
