“He was a good family man, a normal person and an academic.” Head covered by black hijab, the ex-wife of Al Baghdadi speaks for the first time, as she was released in December during a prisoner exchange between Syria and Lebanon. Saga al-Dulaimi, 28, in an exclusive interview to the Expressen, a CNN Swedish affiliate, tells of her former husband, when he was not the leader of the Islamic State. “He had a complex personality and I preferred not to have discussions with him,” says the woman who is mother of four children.
The first name
Grew up in Baghdad in a conservative family of the Iraqi middle class, Saga was already married to one of the personal guards of Saddam Hussein, before she met the man who would become known as Al-Baghdadi. When her first husband died in battle Saga remains a widow with two twins, Omar and Usama. The father convinces her to remarry. “I did not know him but my father settled the new marriage,” she says.
“When we married he was a normal man, who went to University. At that time his name was Hisham Mohammad.” Saga thus reveals a new identity of the terrorist, already known by the American authorities also as Dr. Ibrahim and Abu Du’a. She moved to live in a small apartment with her new husband and his first wife (Saga was the second wife of the polygamist). “He did not tell much about his past, he was mysterious. We met only the evening for dinner. He spent his days at the University where he was studying Sharia. Sometimes he disappeared for several days, saying he was going to visit his brother.”
The secrets
Saga tells that she was not happy with him. This despite he was kind to the children, who used to care for “better than a woman”. “He loved children, he was their idol.” But Saga could not adjust with Al Baghdadi’s first wife so she leaves and returns to her family. “I didn’t love him. He was an enigmatic person, I could not have a normal conversation with him. The last time we spoke was in 2009.”
Saga also explains that she never had evidence that the man was involved in the Iraqi resistance. “I have no idea how he could have become the Emir of the most dangerous terrorist group of history.” Saga then explains that she went to Syria to find part of the family who had moved there. According to Assad’s Service, the father of Saga is one of the leaders of the “moderate” Rebel front linked to Al Qaeda, ie. Al Nusra. Saga is imprisoned in March 2014 and released in a prisoner exchange between Syria and Lebanon. And it is once crossed the border that was explained her how the ex-husband is actually Al-Baghdadi. Or at least that’s what the woman says.
In Lebanon Saga and her children are imprisoned again. Then a year later a new exchange of prisoners was organized between Al Nusra and the Lebanese. So Saga gets out of prison with three children. In addition to the twins in fact Saga is mother of Haga. The little girl, 8 years, according to DNA tests would be indeed the daughter of Al-Baghdadi.
The faults of a wife
The ex-wife of Al-Baghdadi in the interview also argues in favor of sharia (“Sharia is the law which gives freedom to women”). But when is asked if she had to choose between living in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, she responds sure, “Beirut.” Then she says she wants to go in the West and pleads innocence “What would be my fault? I married in 2008. Then I divorced him. I left him by myself. I went through so many misadventures and I suffered in prison. If I had stayed with Al-Baghdadi I could live like a princess. But I do not want money. I want to be free.”
Source: Corriere della Sera