Saddam’s official in NZ

Winston has just said that the Saddam official he has been referring may not be the diplomat that the Government has admitted to discovering.

Peters claims that the person he is referring to is a former Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform for Saddam. He also claimed he was in NZ only since March on a UN passport of all things. And the diplomat has been here for a year, so it is a mismatch.

Clark will not name the person they have located, on the basis doing so may allow him to claim refugee status.

It looks like there are two former officials here! The former diplomat has been here a year, and only found out because they searched for all Iraqi passport holders.

The other one was on a UN passport. Winston named him but I have no chance of spelling it right based on phonetics. A quick Google suggests it might be Aziz Salih al-Numan. I will try to confirm this.

The fact he came here on a UN passport suggests there is more to this than meets the eye. Getting even messier for the Government that they found the wrong person!

UPDATE: The Minister is called Amer Mahdi Alkhashali, as named in a NZF press release. He was delegate to the FAO back in 1981, so not exactly a current regime member it seems.