IGX

When the "poisonous" Saddam Hussein was finally executed, Zainab Salbi wept. When he was captured, hiding in a hole like some feral creature, she stood apart from the wild celebrations. She was with a group of Iraqi women in Jordan who laughed and cried with joy. Though happy he was finally behind bars, it pained her to see the man she had once known as "uncle" humiliated.

That anyone retained a shred of feeling for the deposed dictator was unusual. That tears were shed by the now 43-year-old Iraqi-American author, human rights activist and women's rights campaigner whose family lived daily in constant terror of the murderous dictator is almost unfathomable. And yet somehow, as she explains, it makes perfect sense.