AMMAN, Dec 15 (AFP) - A cousin of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein said Wednesday that his brother was arrested in Iraq after refusing to meet with interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi rather than as a suspected insurgent.
Mzahem al-Majid also denied an account given by Allawi that Ezzedine al-Majid was seized in the flashpoint city of Fallujah where he allegedly fought alongside rebels against US and Iraqi forces.
Two witnesses could testify that the arrest took place in Ramadi, another town in western Iraq, Majid told AFP.
"Ezzedine has never fought with the rebels or assisted them in any way. He was arrested 18 days ago in Ramadi by US troops, not in Fallujah," along with two sons of Sheikh Nayef al-Rashid al-Dulaimi, a Sunni Muslim tribal chief, he said.
The Dulaimi brothers were set free two days later "and told us they had been arrested at 11:30 pm for breaking a curfew, interrogated by the US troops and then released", Majid said.
"On the eve of his arrest, Ezzedine, who had been in Iraq for a few days, received a phone call from Iyad Allawi asking him to join him at a meeting in Amman with Iraqi exiles to discuss the elections," he said.
"Ezzedine refused and told him the (January 30) elections were useless," he said. "Surprisingly, Ezzedine was arrested the next day on the pretext that he carried two passports, an Iraqi one and a Jordanian one."
Allawi said Tuesday that Ezzedine al-Majid was arrested last week in Fallujah and would be tried. "The members of the former regime, especially the hardcore around Saddam Hussein, continue to do damage to Iraq and the Iraqis," he said.
Ezzedine al-Majid, 44, was accused in July by US authorities of helping to organise and arm the insurgency in Iraq, according to the New York Times. He denied the accusations in statements to AFP in July.
He served as an officer in Saddam's elite Republican Guards but defected in 1995 to Jordan with his family and his brother-in-law, Hussein Kamel, a son-in-law of Saddam.
Hussein Kamel, Ezzedine's wife and their four children returned to Iraq in February 1996, where Saddam's henchmen murdered them. Ezzedine was in Turkey at the time.
Ezzedine Kamel in 2000 won refugee status in Britain and has since kept homes in Leeds, the United Arab Emirates and in Jordan.

12/15/2004 11:32 GMT - AFP