Uday Hussein

One source gave it as early as 1963.

He was rumored to have played with disarmed grenades as an infant.

As a child, he and his younger brother Qusay would witness executions with their father.

Uday Saddam Hussein (عدي صدام حسين; 18 June 1964 – 22 July 2003) was an Iraqi politician and the elder son of Saddam Hussein.

He held numerous positions as a sports chairman, military officer and businessman, and was the head of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, Iraq Football Association, and the Fedayeen Saddam.

Uday Hussein was born in Baghdad.

He was the eldest child of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and his first wife and cousin, Sajida Talfah.

Uday was seen for several years as the likely successor to his father but lost the place as heir apparent to his younger brother, Qusay, due to injuries in an assassination attempt.

Multiple sources give different birth dates; although official sources give an 18 June 1964 birth, The Independent gave a birth date of 9 March 1964, while others give a 1965 birth.

Uday attended al-Mansour school in Baghdad in the 1970s.

One of his teachers was Dinah Bentley, an English teacher from Yorkshire who married an Iraqi and briefly taught at the school.

Uday was reportedly driven to school by a chauffeur in a Mercedes-Benz and surrounded by servants.

He picked up his English teacher's Yorkshire accent and was described as a cheerful, bright child who was responsive to discipline, but an average student who struggled to concentrate.

He began studies at Baghdad Medical College, but only stayed for three days.

Then he moved to the College of Engineering, and obtained a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Baghdad.

He wrote his master's thesis on "Iraqi military strategy during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war".

In 1984, after Uday graduated from university, Saddam appointed him chairman of the Iraqi Olympic Committee and the Iraq Football Association.

In the former role, he tortured athletes who failed to win.

According to Latif Yahia, Uday's alleged body double, "The word that defines him is sadistic. I think Saddam Hussein was more human than Uday. The Olympic Committee was not a sports center, it was Uday's world".

Raed Ahmed, an Iraqi athlete who escaped, said: "During training, he would watch all the athletes closely, and put pressure on the coaches to push the athletes even more. If he was not happy with the results, he would have coaches and athletes put in his private prison in the Olympic Committee building. The punishment was Uday's private prison where they tortured people. Some athletes, including the best ones, started quitting the sport once Uday took over the Committee ... I always managed not to be punished. I made sure not to promise anything. There is a strong possibility of always being beaten. But when I won, Uday would be very happy."

In October 1988, at a party in honour of Suzanne Mubarak, wife of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Uday murdered his father's personal valet and food taster, Kamel Hana Gegeo, possibly at the request of his mother.

International footballer Saad Qais said that Uday was angry with him because he was sent off during a 1997 match against Turkmenistan.

His "discipline" was administered by jailers (known as "teachers") in a closed section of a detention facility for athletes and journalists in Radwaniyah Palace.

According to Qais, "Uday established the Rashid team and forced the best Iraqi players to play in it, and forced me to leave my beloved team, and he honored us with gifts after every win, but he also punished us after every loss."

Although his status as Saddam's elder son made him Saddam's prospective successor, Uday fell out of favour with his father.

He obtained a doctorate in political science from the University of Baghdad in 1998 and the title of his dissertation was "The world after the Cold War", in which he predicted the United States would no longer be a world power in 2015.

Some have argued that Uday did not have academic prowess and his theses were written by others in exchange for money and gifts, with no one able to give Uday a low score out of fear.

"He was really smart, probably smarter than his father—but he was crazy," said one of his classmates about Uday.

Following the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he was killed alongside Qusay and his nephew Mustafa by an American task force after a prolonged gunfight in Mosul.

Uday was reportedly erratically ruthless and intimidating to perceived adversaries as well as to close friends.

Relatives and personal acquaintances were often victims of his violence and rage.

Witness allegations have suggested he was guilty of rape, murder, and torture, including the arrest and torture of Iraqi Olympic athletes and members of the national football team whenever they lost a match.

Uday Saddam Hussein Al-Nasiri Al Tikriti was born in Al-Karkh, Baghdad, to Saddam Hussein and Sajida Talfah while his father was in prison.

In 2005, a video of Uday questioning Raed's family was released.

They were then reportedly transported by car to a prison, where they remained for 16 days in poor conditions.

Ammo Baba, whose football teams won 18 tournaments and participated in three Olympics, said that Uday's punishment destroyed players' athletic abilities.

Baba said that half of the Iraqi athletes had left the country, and many had feigned illness before playing against strong competitors; he reportedly told his friends that if he died suddenly, they would know the reason.

Maad Ibrahim Hamid, assistant coach of the national football team, said that Uday rewarded players financially for winning and threatened them with imprisonment if they lost.

According to Hamid, athletes were not tortured; some were arrested for immoral behaviour, however (including adultery and addiction to alcohol), and for playing poorly.

Ahmed Radhi said that after he was unwilling to join the new Al-Rasheed club, he was kidnapped at midnight by Uday's men, beaten and accused of harassment; he accepted Uday's offer when he was threatened with death.