France eyes returning Saddam family villa to Iraq

PARIS, Jan 10 (Reuters) France is looking to return to Iraq property of Saddam Hussein's family frozen under UN sanctions, the foreign ministry said after a newspaper published details of a luxury villa belonging to Saddam's half brother.

French daily Le Figaro said yesterday Baghdad was in talks with Paris over the return of the mansion with two swimming pools and a view of the Mediterranean which belonged to Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief Barzan al-Tikriti.

France's Foreign Ministry said the villa was among assets frozen under a 2003 United Nations Security Council resolution passed shortly after the US-led invasion of Iraq began.

''This villa is part of those and so a procedure is indeed under way to try to see under which conditions we could unfreeze these assets and possibly return them,'' foreign ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei told reporters.

He said France had been looking into returning frozen assets for some time. He did not have details of any other property involved.

An Iraqi court sentenced Barzan and his half-brother to death for crimes against humanity in the killings of 148 Shi'ite men from Dujail in the 1980s. Unlike Saddam, who was hanged earlier this month, Barzan has not been sent to the gallows yet.

''When he was Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Barzan al-Tikriti ... liked to come and relax at the 'Mas', a vast estate that Saddam's half brother acquired in the middle of the 1980s near Cannes,'' Le Figaro said, adding that the villa had several games rooms.

''Since the Lebanese caretaker left a year ago, the vast villa hidden in a pine grove has been empty. Not far from Cannes, in Grasse, Saddam's family owned another residence, which Barzan and his family visited regularly,'' it added.

Mattei said France had to proceed cautiously because of the legal issues involved.

''It is a sensitive issue from a legal perspective because it touches on property law,'' he said. ''Our will is of course to move forward on this file and we are keeping the Iraqi embassy in Paris informed of the evolution of the procedure.'' Reuters AKJ DB1046