Did Iraq put on trial and execute Iraqi President Saddam Hussien's body double? No, that's not true: Saddam Hussein was positively identified after his arrest by other detainees and a DNA match. Iraq's Governing Council head Adnan Al-Pachachi and U.S Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer announced the arrest of Saddam Hussien during a press conference on December 14th, 2003, and showed videos and images of Saddam Hussein in detention. Two days later, U.S. Defence Secretary Donal Rumsfeld confirmed that a DNA test proved the captured leader's identity.
The claim about the Iraqi leader's body double, rumored for years, was published in a series of videos like this (archived here) posted on Tiktok on April 12th, 2023, with a caption reading:
"The man who got executed instead of Saddam was his body double Jasim Al-Ali Salih Al-Doulaimi."
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Apr 13 13:32:51 2023 UTC)
US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld spoke during a press briefing about how they verified Mr Hussein's identity
"The identification process involved some people in his cabinet and some people in the Governing Council. It is not a matter of parading various people before him for the sake of curiosity. It was a matter of during that early period, prior to the time we had DNA proof, knowing that his doubles had used plastic surgery and could very well have done duplicate tattoos and bullet holes and various things that would -- moles that would make it appear they were Saddam Hussein, the decision was made to have him publicly identified."
Rumsfeld confirmed that the DNA test result was conclusive:
"Since we have received DNA -- I guess you'd call it proof, or that's -- I think it's probably 99-point-something percent proof positive is what they say."
