Baghdad, Aug 19: Taha Yassin Ramadan, No. 20 on the US most-wanted list and Saddam Hussein`s vice president, was handed over to US forces in Mosul today, the US defence department said.
Pentagon spokeswoman chief Diane Perry confirmed that he had been turned over to the US Army today. Ramadan also served on Saddam`s revolutionary command council member. He was known as "Saddam`s knuckles." Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite broadcaster, said Ramadan was captured by troops of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan today. He was wearing peasant clothing as a disguise, the broadcaster said. Ramadan, 65, was widely considered as ruthless as Saddam. He headed a 1970 court that executed 44 officers for plotting to overthrow the regime. He worked as a bank clerk before Saddam`s revolution. He came from the Mosul region.

He was Saddam`s vice president beginning in March 1991. During a visit to Jordan in the 1980s, Muslim fundamentalists asked Ramadan what the Baath`s attitude to Islam was. Muslims were free to pray and follow their faith, Ramadan replied, "but if they try to harm the Baathist regime or ridicule its slogans, the regime will break their necks!"

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Ramadan is high on the list of regime figures Iraqi opposition groups say should be tried for war crimes.

Born in 1938, he joined the underground Baath Party in 1956 and became close to Saddam. After the 1968 coup by the party, he held several ministerial posts and became a member of the regional command in 1969.

During the 1980s, he was Deputy Prime Minister and was for a time considered the second most powerful man in Iraq after Saddam.
Bureau Report