BAGHDAD, Dec 14 (AFP) - A cousin of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has been captured in the flashpoint city of Fallujah where he was fighting with rebels, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said Tuesday.
Ezzeddine al-Majid was arrested in the city last week, Allawi told the interim national assembly in Baghdad. "He is now in the hands of Iraqi security forces. There will be an inquiry and he will be judged.
"The members of the former regime, especially the hard core around Saddam Hussein, continue to do damage to Iraq and the Iraqis," he added.
US-led troops killed hundreds of fighters during a massive assault in Fallujah last month, but have continued to face resistance in the flashpoint city that lies west of Baghdad.
Majid, 44, was accused in July by US authorites of helping organise and arm the insurgency in Iraq, according to the New York Times.
He served as an officer in Saddam's elite Republican Guard but fled in 1995 to Jordan with his family and his brother-in-law, Hussein Kamel, a son-in-law of Saddam.
Kamel, Majid's wife and her four children returned to Iraq in February 1996. Saddam's henchmen then murdered them. Majid was in Turkey at the time. He later won refugee status in Britain.
He has since lived there, in the United Arab Emirates, and in Jordan.
12/14/2004 16:30 GMT - AFP