Amir Hamudi Hasan al-Sadi
Amir Hamudi Hasan al-Saadi, also known as Amer al-Sadi, was born on April 5, 1938, in Baghdad. He was a chemist and politician who became Saddam Hussein’s liaison with UN weapons inspectors before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He has been described as the “organizational genius” behind Iraq’s weapons program and, like Hussein Kamel al-Majid, he insisted that Iraq had destroyed its prohibited weapons. The United States listed him as the 32nd most-wanted figure and he appeared as the “Seven of Diamonds” in the famous deck of playing cards.
Al-Saadi surrendered to coalition forces on April 12, 2003, with help from journalists from ZDF. He was detained at Baghdad International Airport as a High Value Detainee, reportedly subjected to 23 hours of solitary confinement each day, a treatment the International Committee of the Red Cross called a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions. He was the first person on the most-wanted list to surrender and the first to be detained by the US. There have been conflicting reports about his release in 2005.
He earned a PhD in physical chemistry from Battersea College of Technology, married a German woman named Hilma in 1963, and raised their children in Hamburg. He retired as a lieutenant general in 1994 and later served as a presidential scientific advisor. In 2017 the Iraqi parliament included him among those whose assets could be confiscated. His friend Ala Bashir later said he was paralyzed and living in Qatar.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 00:39 (CET).