The Times of India

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 2003

Iraq's royal pretender arrives in Baghdad

AP

BAGHDAD: Sounding more like a politician than a king, the exiled aristocrat seeking Iraq's throne returned to his country on Tuesday, promising a crowd of monarchists and tribal sheiks that he wants to create a nation of "dignity, freedom and democracy."

"After so many years outside Iraq, I have come home," Sherif Ali bin Hussein told a crowd of about 1,500 outside his family mausoleum, hours after he flew in from London on a chartered jet after 45 years abroad. "Through the willingness of the Iraqi people, we will rebuild this country."

Sharif Ali, a wealthy London investment banker who fled Baghdad as an infant with his parents after his cousin Faisal II, Iraq's last king, was brutally killed in a 1958 military coup, was vague about how he sees the role of a constitutional monarch after decades of dictatorship under Saddam Hussein.

He said he did not see himself as holding a political position, though he
referred repeatedly to himself as an advocate.

"We're not thinking in terms of power, but in terms of the empowerment of
the Iraqi people," he said at a press conference, speaking with the royal
"we."

His aides say he wants a referendum so Iraqis can choose whether they want
him to head a constitutional monarchy, though he made no specific mention of those plans on Tuesday. They say he will remain in Iraq no matter what
happens.

During his speech outside the mausoleum, where he'd gone to pay respects at the graves of Faisal I and his son King Ghazi, he called for an Iraq built
on "dignity, freedom and democracy," and touched on an issue that brought
perhaps the loudest round of applause.

Copyright © 2003 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.