Irish Department of Injustice, and the Mafia of The Devil's Double Movie.

In this video I answer the most popular questions that I have received through my website, emails and social media.
There are many perceptions of me, that I have made millions from my books and the movie, not true.
That since I fled Iraq my life has been safe, not true, either.. That the government of the country where I reside have provided me with protection and security, that's not true either, I have my own private security.
In my twenty one years in the West, I have not found democracy nor a country to call home and grant me citizenship, and so I am still stateless.
The reason?
I could not and would not sell my soul, One man forced me to become something I wasn't and ruled my life, when I broke free of him I vowed never to be forced to do anything against my will again, be it by a single person or a country.

Osama Bin Laden: 5 Things We Still Don't Know About His Death

 

One year ago Osama bin Laden was shot dead by US Navy Seals during a raid on his home in Pakistan.
His death has brought a range of information on the reclusive al-Qaeda leader to light, however there are still some key pieces of information left in the dark.
Where exactly was he buried?
Following the Navy SEAL mission to infiltrate Bin Laden's Abbottabad complex, his body was taken away by the American secret service and buried at sea. The American government insisted it had done this in order to prevent his burial site becoming a shrine, however the usual conspiracy theories came to rise.
Intelligence company Stratfor's emails, leaked by Wikileaks, seem to suggest that Bin Laden's burial location was not quite where we told. So exactly where is the terror chief’s final resting place?
Exactly what happened when he died?
The top secret operation conducted by Navy SEAL unit Seal Team Six to take down Osama Bin Laden has been described in articles, documentaries and diagrams but we still don't know exactly what happened when the al-Qaeda boss was killed. Did he go down fighting? Did he surrender?
How long was he in Pakistan?
The manhunt for the al-Qaeda leader lasted close to ten years – his hiding skill became a decade-long-joke. Chased through Afghanistan's deserts, foothills and caves, Bin Laden was eventually found in a relatively comfortable, inconspicuous compound. But how long had he resided in Pakistan?
Who knew where he was?
His compound, with fortified walls, barbed wire and guards, was not exactly discreet. Yet Bin Laden managed to hide away in a country known to be a safe haven for terrorists and a country easily accessed from Afghanistan. In their efforts to find the Saudi, did Pakistan not check the heavily-armoured compounds with unknown occupants? Was he not seen on the street for however long he was there?
Just how much did Pakistan know about the operation?
One of the biggest controversies surrounding the mission itself was the admission by American President Barack Obama that the USA had not told Pakistan that it was going to launch a covert mission, invading sovereign airspace without permission. The president defended his actions by saying that it was a snap decision to raid Abbottabad, but how complicit were Pakistan security forces in taking down the most wanted man in the world?

The Devil's Double has been released.

The Devil's Double €19.99 in stoc

Dear friends,

I have just been informed by the publisher that they have cleared all of the pre-orders! Thanks to all of my friends and family who have supported me. Thanks also to everyone who bought a copy of the Devil's Double I hope you enjoy reading it, if you did, why not leave a comment on Arcanum's website? www.arcanummediagroup.com
Best regards to all,
Latif Yahia

Dominic Cooper In 'Motor City': 'Devil's Double' Star Bags Role

The Devil’s Double (2011) Blu-ray/DVD

Following his standout job playing two roles, Dominic Cooper has booked one really big gig.
Cooper starred in this summer's Iraqi war drama, "The Devil's Double," playing both Saddam Hussein's psychotic son Uday and his body double, Latif Yahia. At one moment blustery, irrational and maniacal and then subtle, pained and just, the role won him major plaudits and put him on the leading man radar screen of some of Hollywood's top directors.
Amongst those impressed with his talent was Albert Hughes, "The Book of Eli" director who, according to Variety, was so wowed that he sought Cooper out for the lead role in his next film, the revenge flick "Motor City." And so, Cooper will now play a newly freed ex-con that seeks out to find and punish those that framed him for the crime that landed him in prison.
The film will follow two new big projects Cooper is soon debuting; he has supporting roles in the Michelle Williams-led "My Week With Marilyn," and "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," the Benjamin Walker-starring adaptation of the Seth Grahame-Smith zombie history book.
For more, click over to Variety.

 

The Devil’s Double (2011) Blu-ray/DVD

to those who missed the chance to watch The Devil's Double in the cinema, the DVD and Blu-ray are released today

Oscar Watch: Dominic Cooper.

Dominic Cooper

By Jarett Wieselman

November 18, 2011

www.theinsider.com

While there is still a month and a half before the qualifying period for Oscar eligibility ends, there are already a handful of names being bandied about as "locks" for Best Actor.

George Clooney for The Descendants, Leonardo DiCaprio for J. Edgar, Michael Fassbender for Shame, Ryan Gosling for Drive and Brad Pitt for Moneyball are just a few of the more notable names -- but I'm here to make sure Dominic Cooper's name A) becomes and B) stays a part of the conversation.
This year, he blew me away in The Devil's Double, an unfortunately little-seen movie where he plays dual roles: Uday Hussein, son of Saddam, and Latif Yahia, a doppelganger hired by the family to masquerade as Uday at various public functions.
The performances are so singularly unique, I was even more amazed that he would jump back and forth between the two personas throughout filming -- a fact this behind-the-scenes documentary on Movieline revealed to me.
Watch the snippet below and be sure to pick up The Devil's Double on DVD (out November 22) so you will understand why I plan to spend the next few months talking about Dominic's Double.

 The Devils Double 

Book will be re-released at the end of this month.

THE DEVIL'S DOUBLE, Book.

Dear friends, be aware that the Devils Double book will be re-released at the end of this month, please DO NOT try and buy this book through Amazon or another book site, the publisher will not be supplying any other website with the book it will be available exclusively through Arcanum Media Group. This is also where you will be able to find my other books.
Please share this link with all your friends so that they too know not to buy or pre-order the book on any other site except Arcanum Media Group as they will not receive it and may not get a refund either.
Best regards,

here is the link

www.arcanummediagroup.com

4 - 7 Working days IRL/UK : 10 - 14 working days Rest of World.
 Released on 20/November/2011

• ISBN-10: 0955419131
• ISBN-13: 978-0955419133

Sleeper cells, continued.

Mehidi Army in New Iraq?

Where to begin? Some years ago I wrote an article about Iranian sleeper cells, their function and goals. It was widely ignored, especially by the Irish Intelligence services, nonetheless with the recent attempted assassination of The Saudi Ambassador to the US, people may be starting to pay attention. In the first few articles that came out about the attempt, the American Intelligence services were saying "what are the chances that a used car salesman is an assassin?" well, isn't that how sleepers work? They live as very, very, everyday, normal, don't do anything to draw attention to themselves, "beyond reproach" people. Why wouldn't a used car salesman be a sleeper? That's the kind of cover they need, invisible.

America made it's perfect excuse to go into Afghanistan and Iraq when it fabricated Al-Qaeda (see my other blog), but it also gave Iran it's perfect means of spreading its Jaysh al Quds (Army of Jerusalem) Refugees. I am not saying that all refugees are sleepers, that would be far too much of a generalization, what I am saying is that some refugees, especially those from Iraq, were not even Iraqi never mind true refugees, Iran used the Iraq/Iran war to send out it's first wave and the "War on Terror" to replenish their numbers (it is hard to stay ideologically pure when surrounded by temptation)
 
I think that the time is right to explore why people become "extremists" what drives someone to be a suicide bomber for instance? Well, obviously there are the fanatics, religious or otherwise that believe their way is the only way and are who willing to sacrifice their lives and yours for their cause.
Then there are the people who started out without any particular convictions, who, during the course of their lives witnessed and suffered such cruelty and injustice that they lost all hope and were taken in by fanatics, these people are victims, their pain and suffering is taken and twisted by the true fanatics, they are given an enemy, someone on whom the blame can be placed and sent off to do the fanatics bidding. They are damaged people and they are used in the worst possible way.
Please, please do not believe that fanatics are confined to the Muslim faith, there are Christian, Jewish and many other types too. Recent events in Norway have proved this.

Before I continue I will make this statement again, just in case you haven't read any of my other articles and also to explain.
I am not anti-Shia, while growing up in Iraq we did not have such a divide, everyone celebrated whatever it was with whomever, Shia, Sunni, Kurd, Turkmen, Christian, nobody bothered.
For those that don't know or understand the differences between Sunni and Shia for example, the Sunni came first, Sunnis are followers of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) the Shia or Shi'ite came later when Hussein the son of Prophet Ali was killed in Kuffa, Iraq,(which is why you will see them slap themselves, it is to cleanse them from the sin of his and his families murder) they follow the teachings of Ali, whom they believe should have received the miracle of the Q'uran instead of Prophet Mohammed although Ali was nine at the time, when the Angel Gabriel came down to give the news to Prophet Mohammed that he shall bring the Q'uran to the world, he was sleeping in Ali's bed.

I suppose it is similar to the difference between Catholic and Protestant and with just as much divisiveness these days. I think the true test of any religion is when you don't have to kill in the name of it.
There is also a difference between Iranian Shia and Arabic Shia, when I use the term Shia or Shi'ite I am referring to  the Iranian Shia that follow the Ayatollahs, A lot of Arabic Shia were opposed to the war of 2003 and supported Iraq.

With regard to Saddam Hussein and his regime, he was an equal opportunity employer ( he employed Sunni, Shia and Kurd etc) and an equal opportunity killer, if you committed a crime against Iraq/Saddam it made no difference to him what creed your name came under.

No organisation would be able to function without a network, so in the next paragraph or two I will give an example of how the "wrong" kind of people can claim asylum in your country. I'm using a case in Ireland that I have made the authorities aware of but they have done nothing about.

Pre-2003 there were three Mosques in Dublin, the very large one in Goatstown, a smaller one on the South-Circular road and a Hussainiya at Dundrum Bridge.

Hussainiya at Dundrum Bridge

Al Hussain House,Dundrum Bridge, Dundrum road. Dublin, Ireland.
The Sheikh or Imam at the Hussainiya is called Abu Hassan originally Ali Al Saleh a Shia from Saudi Arabia, he started out as a Doctor but changed his image from suits and ties to Djellabas and Imama (a sheikhs turban). This was quickly followed by a trip to Iran and Saudi Arabia to set in motion the funding of a larger Shia presence in Ireland, the Sunni Saudis had already built the large Mosque in Goatstown. The Shia Saudis funded the Hussainiya at Dundrum bridge, headed by Abu Hassan. So with cash in his pocket Abu Hassan built the larger Hussainiya on land that had once belonged to a foreign student, when the student had finished his education he returned home, Abu Hassan seized the opportunity, he bribed a solicitor and had the deeds changed over to his name.
The Hussainiya also houses small rooms upstairs where he homes refugees and bills the Irish State. Over his years here Abu Hassan has built up a relationship with many refugees and Irish politicians, some of those refugees have become translators in the Department of Justice. Abu Hassan has also become the "go to guy'" for the Irish intelligence service and the Special Branch, his character reference is enough of a guarantee for them.

Ali Al Saleh , Abu Hassan

With Abu Hassan's help people from Bahrain (who speak Arabic with an Iraqi accent) and Saudi Arabia claim asylum as Iraqis, Abu Hassan makes his translator friends in the Department of Justice aware that they will be in for interview and to back up their story or correct them while they are in the interview.
 It is a big part of the Shia culture to be able to cry, they cry very openly at religious festivals etc and are able to use this to great effect in their interviews. In the Shia religion anything that you do in "an infidels/non-believers country" is okay, you may. lie, cheat, steal, sleep with their women, anything to get what you want because they are unbelievers and God will punish them anyway.
 If the interviewer still isn't convinced Abu Hassan also has connections in Iraq to provide him with whatever forged document that the refugee needs, the prices for such services range from 250-500 euro depending on the document. 1,000 euros for the forged deeds to a house in Iraq.
There are now more than thirty Husainiyas in Ireland, each person that attends a Hussainiya pays a tithe equivalent to a percentage of their wages/social welfare. There is so much money flowing to Abu Hassan from Iran, Saudi and the Khumus(tithes) that he doesn't know what to do with it, except maybe buy more property and expand his Hussainiyas. In these times where a lodgement of over 5,000 euros is questioned does no one ask Abu Hassan where his money comes from? Or has the recession hit so hard that they don't care as long as he's bringing it into the country?
I have proof of this and the address of every house that he owns.
Abu Hassan's property portfolio since the fall of Saddam in 2003 stands at, 95 houses, the asking price pre-recession was between 280,000 euros up to 900,000 for one he owned in Ballsbridge. He owns restaurants, Barbers a limousine company, dry cleaners and properties in Dubai. Most of these properties and businesses are in other people's names, with the business name taking a 10% cut for running the business.
The newest addition to the services that the Hussainiyas provide is Mutha. Mutha is a marriage for a short time, so that the participants may engage in martial-sex and then divorce afterwards. The fee is 200 euros, payable to the Hussainiya, unless the woman is a virgin and then the "husband" is obliged to pay 5,000 euros. Those wishing to participate may choose a partner from pictures in an album, supplied by a woman whom I won't name but is known to the Irish authorities and works as a translator in the Department of Justice. The proceeds of Mutha are divided 60/40 to Abu Hassan and 40 to the woman. Many Irish women who have converted to Shia through the Hussainiya have been duped into putting their photos in this book in the hopes of finding a husband, they do find one but never longterm.
Brothels may be illegal in Ireland, but through Religious Freedom it seems the red lights shine.

As with Abu Hassan and the case below, I and other like minded people have been watching these people who bring shame to the Nation of Iraq and Islam. Even though I am not religious. We decided that giving information to the Western governments as they are already aware but choose to do nothing is pointless. So all the information that we have about Abu Hassan and people like him here in the west, is being used for the future. When Iraq is a true Nation once again, these people will be sought so that Iraq may reclaim the money taken from it, that it may be put to use rebuilding Iraq and  giving aid to the people who truly need assistance.
These examples are just from Ireland, there are many others like these men in Canada, America, Sweden, France, Germany, Britain and Australia etc.

One interesting refugee actually from Iraq but with a false asylum claim is General Muttar Hameed Jabir al-Mohamedawi born  01/07/1957 and married to Intissar Anwar Daoud born in 1961 a Christian who converted to Islam. In his asylum claim Muttar says that two of his sons were killed in Iraq and that he was a "High Ranking" Ba'ath party member and therefore cannot return to Iraq for fear of being killed, he has provided the Irish authorities with documentation to support his claim, but in a country that is now built on fraud should anyone really believe them?

Muttar Hameed Jabir al-Mohamedawi

Muttar received his title of General in the Iraqi Police from the Mehidi Army (who are backed and funded by Iran) it was an honour bestowed upon him, something that would never happen if he was Ba'ath party. Also Muttar travels back and forth to Iraq through Syria using Iraqi passports, the reason for his travel is business, the business of detaining people in his Iraqi Police cells and keeping them there until their families pay up. No one is released until he returns to Iraq from Ireland.
He is also responsible for organised kidnappings, when he is unable to return to Iraq the money is lodged to his various Irish bank accounts via Dubai by his brother-in-law, from his "business" he receives hundreds of thousands of euros a month. Muttar has also openly admitted that he has killed seven people, all from the same family, a Father, three children, two cousins and one other male relative, the reason? They allegedly killed one of his cousins. I passed this information to the Irish Intelligence service about a year ago, their reply, well.. it'll take some time... In the meantime he was granted refugee status.

Before 2003 there were maybe three Shia channels on Iraqi Television, now there are hundreds, all preaching that they (the Shia) are victims. That under Sunni rule they were killed, had no religious freedoms and were subjugated. Under Saddam's rule which I mentioned earlier he killed anyone, he outlawed the practice of whipping yourself which the Shia do during Ashur and many new festivals they have now, because the body is a temple and should not come to any harm especially by one's own hand. Some Muslims won't even pierce their ears. As for subjugation, well the whole of Iraq was under his hand wasn't it?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with Israelis??

You may like to consider the above an exaggeration, but if you go to Iraqi history and delve into the regime's role-call and Ba'ath Party register you will see that over 75% of the members of the Iraqi police, the Prison guards, Fidayeen Saddam the Militia run by Uday Saddam Hussein but who after the fall of Saddam swapped their black uniforms for black Mehidi Army uniforms, General's, all of the higher echelons of Iraqi society had more than 50% of Shia participants. 

Iran, it's followers and sleepers have already invaded the West, since 1979 when the Shi'ite Islamic revolution happened the Mullahs put their plan into action. Their goal, that the world convert not just to Islam but to Shi'ite.  Iran told America 'If it wasn't for us, you couldn't put one foot in Iraq!' and it is true that without Iran, America couldn't have gone into Iraq or Afghanistan. This rhetoric from America that Iran is part of "the Axis of evil" is just that, America, Iran and Israel are holding hands in an attempt to conquer the Middle-east. Infiltration is the preferred method. Three or four years ago Iran tried to infiltrate Morocco, the government became wise to their tactics and closed the Iranian Embassy there and turned it into a public toilet.
After the fall of Mubarak they tried to invade Egypt also, they started supporting a publisher and printer in Dumyiat that printed Shi'ite literature, the Egyptian government were alerted and they deported all the Shi'ite that had already arrived and have made it very hard for Iranian shi'ite  to enter.
During the Invasion of 2003 and the following years, 80% of the refugees that America took in from Iraq were Shia, if the Shia were not working with or for America why should they take them? Iraq was and is under Shia control, Saddam was over, why should they be refugees?

Al Hussain House in Dublin Not Iran.

Tony Blair wrote to Gaddafi 'to suggest investment projects'

Tony Blair wrote to Col Muammar Gaddafi to suggest African projects in which the former Libyan leader could invest, according to reports.

Tony Blair meets Libyan leader Col Gaddafi at his desert base outside Sirte south of Tripoli in 2007

The former prime minister told Gaddafi, in a letter dated February 17 2008, that he was "very interested to hear from you of the progress that is being made and the great opportunities there are for the future".

He also thanked the dictator for his "hospitality during my visit to Libya and for taking the time to meet with me. I greatly appreciated and enjoyed our wide-ranging conversation."

Mr Blair says he was "particularly interested in what you said about the funds that will be dedicated to projects in Africa, since you know I am doing a lot of work there and know of good, worthwhile projects for investments".

Tony Blair with Colonel Gaddafi in 2007

The disclosure of the letter in the Daily Mail comes after documents which were found in Tripoli appeared to show that the former prime minister secretly met Gaddafi twice before the Lockerbie bomber was released.

Mr Blair also sent other letters on the same date in 2008 thanking the then-prime minister of Libya, Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, and to a man believed to be deputy prime minister, Dr Abdulhafid al-Zulaytini, for "facilitating my meeting with the Leader".

In both letters he presses the two politicians for further meetings, saying "do let me know when you are in London" and tells them the appropriate means by which to contact him, it was reported.
Mr Blair has maintained his counsel on the full extent of his meetings in Libya since leaving office in June 2007.
Earlier this week, The Daily Telegraph learned that Mr Blair used visits to Libya after he left office to lobby for business for the American investment bank JP Morgan.
A senior executive with the Libyan Investment Authority, the $70 billion fund used to invest the country's oil money abroad, said Mr Blair was one of three prominent western businessmen who regularly dealt with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the former leader.
Saif al-Islam and his close aides oversaw the activities of the fund, and often directed its officials on where they should make its investments, he said.
The executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, said officials were told the "ideas" they were ordered to pursue came from Mr Blair as well as one other British businessman and a former American diplomat.
A spokesman for Tony Blair said: "Tony Blair has never sought or received funding from Gaddafi or the Libyan government for any of his projects in Africa and neither have his charities.
"This discussion was about how best Libya used its substantial Africa Development Fund to help internationally supported infrastructure projects in Africa for the benefit of African people.
"It was a perfectly proper and sensible discussion to have. In the event they never did support them.”

CIA files depict Malta as Libyan terrorist hub between 1988-1991.

Lockerbie campaigners unimpressed.

Abdelbaset al Megrahi who had been found guilty of the Lockerbie bombing, with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, one of the sons of the Libyan leader, after arriving back in Tripoli. Mr al Megrahi was released from the Scottish prison on August 20, 2009.

Malta was a “primary launching point” for Libyan intelligence and terrorist teams transiting Europe, according to a recent compilation of declassified CIA cables dating between 1988 and 1991.
But campaigners for justice in the Lockerbie bombing case have slammed such claims, describing the CIA’s main informant as a “money-grubbing fantasist” who led the CIA by the nose.
The informant quoted extensively in the 255-page document (taken predominantly from declassified CIA cables released in 2008 and compiled by an international organisation) is Abdul Majid Giaka, whose testimony, as an informant, was pivotal in convicting Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing, despite the court having cast doubts on Mr Giaka’s credibility and reliability as a witness.
According to Lockerbie campaigner Robert Forrester, the recently compiled cables are so heavily redacted that any effort to corroborate the veracity of intelligence is impossible.
“Giaka was showered with US tax dollars in return for nothing of substance,” he told The Times.
Mr Forrester – who forms part of a group of Lockerbie victim family members who believe Mr al Megrahi was wrongly convicted – also criticised the CIA for showing no indication of having tried to independently corroborate any of the “so-called intelligence”.

The CIA are behind all the dictators and terrorists across the world.

“It really does look like [the CIA] swallowed it all, hook, line and sinker, until it finally dawned on them that he was worthless,” he said.
“These additional papers detailing the CIA’s relationship with Mr Giaka, add little to what is already known and to the doubts which have always hung over this case... Malta has absolutely no reason to think that these documents taint the island’s good name any more than it has been.”
However, he added that it is up to the Maltese government to take “concrete steps” to lift the cloud of Lockerbie which hangs over the island.
“The evidence is there which proves that there is no evidence to support this conviction.”
The connection with Malta and subsequently with Mr Al-Megrahi was made when police recovered from the wreckage items of baby clothing bearing the label ‘Yorkie’ made by a Maltese company. The clothing, traced to a Sliema shop, was found in the suitcase believed to have been carrying the bomb. Though the courts decided that the bomb left from Malta, another theory was that it had been placed on board a London-bound plane at Frankfurt airport before reaching the Pam Am jet that was bound for New York. Some still believe Iran, and not Libya, was behind the bombing.
Mr Giaka, the informant who is also referred to as “P/1” in the intelligence reports, was a Libyan working for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta who decided to cooperate with the CIA in 1988 because he wanted to be relocated and given money to start a new life with his Maltese wife.
In return for months of information gathering and supplying intelligence, he got the CIA to help him get mock-surgery to exempt him from military service back in Libya.
One of the intelligence reports claims that Maltese immigration and airport officials helped Libyan intelligence agents “monitor suspected Libyan oppositionists” in exchange for regular gifts. (Names are not being published for legal reasons.) They were “especially helpful” in helping officials and contacts of Libya’s External Security Organisation (ESO) travel from Malta to Libya without a trace, it was claimed.
Meanwhile, a Libyan living in Malta was used as a conduit to “Maltese Labour Union (a likely reference to the Labour Party) leaders and influential members of the Maltese Nationalist Party”.
The CIA first described Mr Giaka as “intelligent, serious and fairly well composed” as well as committed and capable of passing terrorist-type intelligence on a timely basis.
But the CIA later began to question Mr Giaka’s commitment, saying his financial situation became a major motivating factor in meeting. “[His] procrastination beyond reasonable limits is testing patience,” one report comments.
In his meetings with the CIA, Mr Giaka spoke about the visits to Malta of Mr Al Megrahi and other suspicious Libyan agents. He also speaks about orange-coloured explosives which arrived in Malta while Mr Al Megrahi was here, which were kept stored in a drawer at a Valletta apartment.
In 1991, he was described as “shattered”. He is quoted as having bluntly noted that the Maltese would do anything for money and those at the top of the current government would gladly turn him over if it meant making some cash.
Ultimately, Mr Giaka is described as “a defector from a sensitive position who has served faithfully since his walk-in in 1988” and the CIA concurred that staying in Malta would be very dangerous.
The cables also quote an anonymous Libyan businessman who says the Libyan intelligence presence in Malta would increase significantly in 1989, including personnel within both the ESO and the Libyan military intelligence service. The ESO had recruited a Maltese national employed as a vendor at Luqa airport to assist in acquiring information on persons of interest to the Libyan service, according to the cable.
“This individual prepares biographic and assessment information on personnel of interest to the ESO and forwards his reports to ESO headquarters in Tripoli via a Libyan Arab Airlines courier.”

The Devil's Double, Amsterdam Premiere, September 5th 2011

The Dutch Premiere of The Devil's Double, Amsterdam September 5th 2011. My special thanks to Corrino Media Group , Staccato and A-Film who organised the event, well done to all a great evening and the best premiere so far!

Vanaf 8 september in de bioscoop: The Devil's Double (NL)! Van James Bond regisseur Lee Tamahori komt deze knallende actiefilm over de dubbelganger van de zoon van Saddam Hussein! Ook wel de Scarface van het Midden Oosten genoemd dus deze film mag je niet missen!

Mooie vrouwen in gouden bikini's, de aanwezigheid van de internationale cast en regisseur, een stormloop op Tuschinski en meer dan genoeg BN'ertjes die deze film niet wilden missen: alle ingrediënten voor een geslaagde première waren aanwezig. Maar het meest bijzondere was toch wel dat de echte Latif Yahia acte de presence gaf met zijn familie. Inderdaad, de man die gedwongen werd de dubbelganger van Uday Hoessein te worden; een sadistische en totaal ontspoorde dictatorszoon. 

Meet the real Devil’s Double: A conversation with Latif Yahia

 By Jenn Schanz

Could you live with the devil for five years? How about become him?
At only 23-years-old, Iraqi military official Latif Yahia faced both dilemmas, as the psychotic eldest son of Iraq's notorious dictator brought him to the edge of hell and back with a job offer.
Or rather, a job assignment.
To be a fiday, a double…
Adapted from Yahia's autobiographical book, the 2011 Sundance film "The Devil's Double" directed by Lee Tamahori and starring Dominic Cooper as both Yahia and Uday Hussein, is being called a "must-see summer movie" and the "Scarface of Arabia."

Latif Yahia

While Yahia praised the film and Cooper's performance, stating that "no one has played him [Uday] as well as Dominic….great performance," it's apparent that nothing about the film's inspiration was glamorous.
For five years Yahia, now a Ph.D and well respected author, endured torture, forced plastic surgery, and psychological torment at the hands of a man he calls "completely erratic" - Uday Hussein.
Yahia and Hussein became classmates in their adolescence but it wasn't until the closing of the Iran-Iraq war that Yahia was called summoned to undertake what would become the most heinous and disturbing task of his life.
Becoming Uday Saddaam Hussein.
Yahia recalls the emotional chords struck by certain scenes in Tamahori's film: "The scene that affected me the most was the torture scene where Uday is whipping me on the bench. It reminds me of all the torture that I suffered at his hands. The scene where he tries to have me kill the father of the raped girl, not just because I refused and slit my wrists but because, although the movie doesn't show it, Uday actually took the gun as I was bleeding and shot the man anyway, right there in his office."
Forced to duplicate Hussein's mannerisms, demeanor, and even dental alignment, Yahia assured me that Uday, as crazed and powerful as he was, never truly took hold of who he was.
"I never lost myself, if I had I would have given in to Uday's lifestyle and psychotic behavior as his "friends" did," Yahia says. "Always in the back of my head I would say "I am Latif Yahia, my father is Yahia, he raised me to be a strong and true man."
Reflecting on the most difficult aspects of his experience as a body double, the now husband and father recalled the anguish of witnessing Uday's treatment of women.
"Uday would find them anywhere and everywhere, if they didn't come willingly he had them abducted. He had his pimps bring groups of girls around and he would choose, whomever was leftover the pimps could have…. I believe they should all rot in hell."
While discussing film, which has not been shown in Iraq, Yahia also notes the sociopolitical impact "The Devil's Double" had on the Muslim world, and why U.S. involvement in Iraq has destroyed a connection to his homeland.
"Iraq has been brought back a thousand years, thanks. The Muslim people all know what their leaders are and how they behave, in Iraq we had one Saddam and one Uday, now we have hundreds, every Ministers' son acts in the way Uday did."
He continues, "Anyone who says Iraq is stable is lying, delusional, corrupt and/or working for the American government. I have no feeling for a country that is run by Iranians and occupied by American forces."
In 2003, Uday Saddam Hussien was killed along with his brother Qusay and nephew Mustapha during a U.S. Task Force 20 confrontation. Yahia was less than satisfied at hearing the news.
"I was FURIOUS! Not because he I liked him! I wanted justice! I wanted to see him in court, I wanted to stand in front of a judge and say ‘Look what this madman did to me,' I wanted the Iraqi people to get Justice, killing him was the easy way out. No one got closure or justice that day."
What is justice?
After reading Yahia's book and seeing the film, I am moved by the power of individual resilience and personal character, even when the world is trying to rip it away from you. Perhaps justice is the ability to propel forward, unscathed by the evils of one's past.
Having spent the last 15 years in Ireland, despite 105 letters to the Ministry of Justice in Ireland, Yahia still awaits to hear back from his third citizenship application. His previous two were denied.
"I will never give up my fight for free speech, freedom, and justice…I work for peace around the world, with people who believe in peace and humanity." Yahia is now working on what he refers to as a "controversial" documentary film, and seems to be following the promise made on his personal website.
"As my dearest friends and family say ‘I don't have a filter' but for me it's easy to talk about these things, I don't have a political party to toe the line in, I'm not affiliated to anyone or anything. Therefore I can speak the truth and the only one that will pay the price will be me. If I survive the release of the documentary."
Although Latif Yahia is still in search of a homeland, 19-years after the darkest chapter in his life, it seems that he is, in some way, at home with himself.

For more information on Dr. Latif Yahia's story or the film "The Devil's Double" visit www.latifyahia.com

The Devil's Double Book.

My dear friends, I promised you a new edition of The Devil's Double, here is the new cover of the book, it will be out before Christmas 2011, I promise and at a reasonable price, unlike the idiots on Amazon. I'm donating my royalties to the Iraqi Orphans, America does the damage and it's up to us to try and fix the country, I urge my American friends to tell the administration to stop supporting Dictators and "liberating" us from the Dictators that they support and have installed in our countries.
Best regards to all.
Latif Yahia

http://www.facebook.com/TheDevilsDoubleBook

Dominic Cooper does double duty in 'Devil's Double'

The actor gets to portray Uday Hussein and his body double thanks to high- and low-tech methods.

By Mark Olsen, Special to the Los Angeles Times.

Dominic Cooper stars as Latif Yahia (left) and Uday Hussein (right) in
"The Devil's Double." (Lionsgate, Lionsgate / July 24, 2011)

In "The Devil's Double," which opens in Los Angeles on Friday, actor Dominic Cooper does double duty. Not only does he play Uday Hussein, the notorious sadistic playboy son of Saddam Hussein, he also plays Latif Yahia — a man whose resemblance to Uday earned him the unwelcome job of his body double.

Audiences have long loved a twin-type story — and given the economics of modern Hollywood, getting two performances out of one star must seem like a good deal. Although making it appear as if the same person is doubled on-screen is one of the oldest camera tricks around, digital technology has given filmmakers more options than ever to work their sleight-of-hand.

In last year's "The Social Network," for instance, two actors were used to portray the bodies of the Winklevoss twins — but digital head-replacement effects gave them identical faces. Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar is set to make her return to series television this fall with "Ringer," playing a woman on the run who assumes the life of her twin sister. Comedian Adam Sandler will play male-female twins in November's "Jack and Jill."

In making "The Devil's Double," director Lee Tamahori found that constraints of time, money and story meant that rather than strictly going for the shiniest new tools available, crafting Cooper's on-screen double would require a mix of old and new techniques and figuring things out as the production moved along.

The film is loosely based on the real-life story of Yahia and creates a garish portrait of late-1980s Baghdad that is equal parts seductive and repulsive. Cooper's dual performance becomes a vivid exploration of identity, as an innocent man loses himself inside the disorientingly glamorous and dangerous world of a depraved monster.

Michael Thomas' script specified that Uday and Latif be played by the same actor, making the casting especially important, while also pointing toward the visual effects problem-solving that would be needed to put the two characters on-screen together.

"That was going to be the big challenge of the film," Tamahori said. "Everything else was kind of a no-brainer, but there's really no road map for doing these twin-shot movies. You can talk to the technical people about how to do it and we looked at what other people had done, but I was adamant that really the most important thing was to separate the two characters so completely that people would believe they are watching two characters, not one actor playing two parts."

"The Devil's Double" returns Tamahori to the international indie roots of his 1994 film "Once Were Warriors," after excursions into Hollywood filmmaking on titles such as the James Bond movie "Die Another Day." The fast 52-day shooting schedule on "Devil" and relatively low budget (less than $15 million, according to Tamahori) meant that some obvious solutions for putting Cooper (whose films include "Captain America: The First Avenger" and "Mamma Mia!") on-screen with himself wouldn't work.

"I thought going in that it was going to be a full-blown VFX picture with head replacements and motion-control everywhere," said Tamahori, referring to a kind of computerized camera control. "We had a very tight schedule, and I was trying to throw the entire bag of tricks at it. I wanted a motion-control rig hired for the entire movie, and that was just too expensive. So we went on a kind of two- or three-track approach of trickery combined with good old-fashioned acting."

Foremost was to make strong distinctions between Cooper's portrayal of the two characters. For Uday, he used a higher, slightly wheezier voice, which an on-set voice coach monitored to ensure he didn't slip into while talking as Latif. False teeth, makeup and some prosthetics were also used to change Cooper's appearance between Latif and Uday.

"I had the feeling I was working with two actors," said actress Ludivine Sagnier, who plays a girlfriend of Uday's who becomes involved with Latif.

For scenes in which Cooper was to appear in both roles, Tamahori would shoot him with another actor filling the opposite role. Then Cooper, and sometimes the double, would change costumes and do the scene again for the other role. Shooting digitally meant that Tamahori could immediately get an idea of how the sides matched up.

Tamahori was surprised to discover that the sound recording was often as important and difficult to match as the image. So that Cooper could properly seem to be exchanging dialogue with himself in the finished version, Tamahori and his technical team decided to record a handful of takes of the first side of a scene, then stop to decide upon the best one right on the set.

A sound edit would then immediately be made of the dialogue so that Cooper — sometimes wearing an earpiece to hear his recorded voice — could go ahead with the second take knowing how to respond to the timing of the lines, heightening the reality of his interactions with himself. (A similar on-the-spot technique was used for some scenes in "Moon" when Sam Rockwell played a man trapped in a space station with a clone of himself.)

"The technicalities of it for me were unlike anything I've ever known," Cooper said. "One of the things I find most enjoyable about acting is that ability to react and respond with another actor, to develop and unravel and make a scene progress. And here I would do it as one character and that would be set in stone. The most helpful thing was I knew all the thoughts going through my head as I was acting it the first time and I could kind of respond to the memory of that."

David Cronenberg's 1988 film "Dead Ringers," in which Jeremy Irons played twin gynecologists, was among the first to use computer technology to exactingly replicate camera moves when shooting both halves of twin-effect shots. In "Devil's Double," a full motion-control setup — where the entire camera body can without human contact physically move and pan or tilt and then the sequence can be repeated — was used for the most complicated shots, such as when Uday brings Latif to a full-length mirror to admire their likenesses.

More frequently, though, Tamahori and cinematographer Sam McCurdy used what they came to think of as a half motion-control set-up, whereby the camera could be moved on a dolly or tracks by grips and then brought to a stop, with the camera operator executing a pan or tilt once the camera had come to a fixed position. A computerized mount known as a memory head was then used to perfectly re-execute the operator's move on a second pass. This technique was faster — and cheaper.

Among the most complicated shots to achieve in any "twin" film is to have the two characters appear to touch. In "Dead Ringers," the twins touch only once, and they are not moving in the shot. In "The Devil's Double," the two characters touch several times, one being a scene in which Uday places a gun into Latif's hand. That was one of only three instances in which a digital head-replacement effect was used in the film.

As the production progressed, Cooper and the filmmakers modulated their approach to each shot.

"I was always learning," Cooper said. "It would change, sometimes I'd have another actor, sometimes I wouldn't, sometimes I had an earpiece, it was all how I felt at that time and what was most useful for that shot and that moment.

"There were moments where we were all shouting at each other, 'Maybe this would work,' 'No, this,' and it was just a fantastic, vibrant, very un-technical environment," he added. "I had no idea really what I was getting myself involved in, this technology that no one knew a huge amount about. I think we were all kind of amazed it worked at all."

calendar@latimes.com

The Devil's Double Official Trailer. from Latif Yahia on Vimeo.

The Film of my life story,

The Devil's Double .

AL-Jazeera TV.

Saddam Hussein's elder son, Uday, was a man widely feared and loathed by the Iraqi people.
Famously cruel and violent, he had a reputation for raping schoolgirls and newly married brides, and reportedly once killed a member of his staff in front of a room full of party guests.
Latif Yahia attended the same school as Uday, and was noticed by the Hussein family for a particular trait -- he looked a lot like Uday.
At the age of 23, Latif was informed that he was to become Uday's body double. Refusal was not an option.
He underwent extensive training and plastic surgery to make their appearances more similar, and suffered numerous assassination attempts before fleeing to Austria in 1992.
Lee Tamahori's The Devil's Double explores Latif's traumatic experiences in the inner circle of a regime from which he is one of the few survivors. FPS talks to Latif and British actor Dominic Cooper, who took on the challenging double role of both, Latif and Uday.

Abu Ghraib Prison

This site is to show the Horrific footage of American techniques at Abu Ghraib prison.
To throw light on the hypocrisy that is the West, "we shall not torture! - on our own soil" Under the veil of Liberation America went into Iraq to save the Iraqi people, instead they tortured, killed, maimed and defiled. But even through the occupation they did not "install" Democracy, but a weak and feeble government, an excuse for an Iraqi Parliament controlled on one side by Iran and the other by America. Iraq will never again be free or Liberated.

Abu Ghraib Prison Part 1

Abu Ghraib Prison Part 2

Abu Ghraib Prison Part 3

Abu Ghraib Prison Part 4

Abu Ghraib Prison Part 5

Abu Ghraib Prison Part 6

Abu Ghraib Prison Part 7

Abu Ghraib Prison Part 8

Collateral Murder

Overview

Update: On July 6, 2010, Private Bradley Manning, a 22 year old intelligence analyst with the United States Army in Baghdad, was charged with disclosing this video (after allegedly speaking to an unfaithful journalist). The whistleblower behind the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, has called Mr. Manning a 'hero'. He is currently imprisoned in Kuwait. The Apache crew and those behind the cover up depicted in the video have yet to be charged. To assist Private Manning, please see bradleymanning.org.

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.

After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".

Consequently, WikiLeaks has released the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008, revealing these rules before, during, and after the killings.

WikiLeaks has released both the original 38 minutes video and a shorter version with an initial analysis. Subtitles have been added to both versions from the radio transmissions.

WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.

WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work.

Sundance Film Festival
by Jen Yamato || 01 28 2011 4:30 PM

The Devil’s Double: The Outrageous, Over the Top Iraqi Scarface You’ve Been Waiting For

Tired of those run-of-the-mill biopics and staid Iraq war dramas that avoid sensationalism out of respect for their subjects? Want a peek into the orgiastic, debauched, ultra-violent underbelly of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? Director Lee Tamahori brought all that and more to an unsuspecting audience — and conjured his own comparisons to David Fincher’s The Social Network, naturally — with The Devil’s Double, the guiltiest thrill of Sundance 2011.

Based very, very loosely on the life of Latif Yahia, an Iraqi lieutenant enlisted to double for Saddam’s out-of-control elder son Uday, The Devil’s Double stars Dominic Cooper (Mamma Mia!) in a bravura dual performance as both the monster and his innocent stand-in. Forced into indentured servitude under pain of torture and threats to his family, and transformed into a perfect doppelganger through plastic surgery and mimicry lessons, Cooper’s stoic Latif watches disapprovingly as Uday rapes and murders his way through life in a coke-fueled psychopathic haze, a pistol-waving, sex-obsessed, wild-eyed, magnetic thug with a penchant for schoolgirls and no interest in becoming the responsible heir apparent to his stern, menacing father. Whenever Uday is incapacitated or lazy, he sends Latif to make speeches to the troops; eventually, when Latif has had enough, he takes Uday’s favorite mistress (Ludivine Sagnier) as his own. The two men are brothers in Uday’s perverse way of thinking, and the only way Latif will ever escape his enslavement is in death.

Though he plays fast and loose with the facts, Tamahori claims to get the most important details right: The well-documented horrors of life inside the palace walls, where even honored guests and confidantes of Saddam were in danger of Uday’s explosive, violent rage; Uday’s proclivity for abusing his power to kidnap, rape, and murder young girls. (A brief scene in which Latif comes across the sight of two Saddams playing tennis is a comically bizarre break from the brutality.) The Devil’s Double is a portrait of a monster, no doubt, and yet the movie indicates he’s nothing in comparison to his father.

That sense for the corruption and danger that hung in the air during the Hussein family regime is what lingers most, even after Tamahori’s tale flies off the rails and enters almost legendary WTF? status. First comes the melodramatic love triangle, brought to the edge of campiness by Ludivine Sagnier’s anti-subtle turn as the sultry minx Sarrab (perhaps the film’s most egregiously ridiculous bit of non-ethnic casting, but hey). Then there’s the bombastic lovers’ escape, in which Sarrab and Latif literally ride off triumphantly on horseback. But nothing compares to how Tamahori ends it all by channeling his own James Bond past, transforming the epic-scale gangster pic into an all-out spy actioner, slo-mo shoot-outs and sexy hero shots and all. (Or, as an astute writer pal put it, “It’s a real life version of Medellin.”)

Tamahori took the stage after his Sundance premiere to answer a lot of questions. Portraying Latif Yahia’s story in its factual details was never the plan, for starters. “I’m not a great fan of truth in film,” he explained, lauding Michael Thomas’s “odd and twisted” screenplay.

Though many of the scenes of torture, rape, and killing in the film came from actual documented events, the real Uday’s crimes “are all worse than we possibly could have portrayed.” (Tamahori sent a ripple through the crowd when he suggested, unflinchingly, that the unruly, power-hungry children of despots across the world should be lined up against a wall and shot.)

And finally, the first person to compare Lee Tamahori’s The Devil’s Double to The Social Network was, of course, Lee Tamahori. While Fincher pulled a digital facelift to allow his two Winklevii to share the screen, Tamahori and star Cooper (whose impressive turns as Uday and Latif are like night and day) used a variation on the technique to shoot the film’s many Latif-Uday scenes, filming a master shot in one character first, then editing for sound and throwing Cooper back in to play the second part in the same day.

Will Tamahori’s The Devil’s Double earn Social Network-level plaudits when it’s eventually released? (A deal with Lionsgate is reportedly close.) Probably not. The material’s just too insane. But let’s be real: That’s exactly why it will appeal to many. Because as much as The Devil’s Double is about the innocent man who lived to tell the tale, it’s the most revealing, rape-y, torture-filled, excessively gaudy inside look at Iraq’s unstable family of thugs that we’re likely to ever get. The film itself falls prone to the sensory indulgences of its maker, but at a certain point it no longer matters whether that’s by design or not.

Lionsgate takes North America on Sundance hit Devil's Double

27 January, 2011 | By Jeremy Kay

The studio has closed a deal for North American rights on Lee Tamahori’s widely admired thriller, ending several days of conversations between the film’s representatives and multiple suitors.

Lionsgate is understood to have agreed to a substantial seven-figure MG and p&a commitment and is planning a significant theatrical release and awards campaign centred on British talent Dominic Cooper’s breakout role as Uday Hussein and his body double Latif Yahia. Ludivine Sagnier also stars.

Paradigm Motion Picture Group and CAA jointly handled North American rights and Corsan international sales head Pascal Borno closed a deal with Icon for Australia and New Zealand at the festival.

Lionsgate beat several rival bids and entered exclusive negotiations with the representatives in the small hours of Wednesday [26]. As first reported on Screendaily, Relativity and Summit both circled the project but did not pursue it aggressively. Several other buyers are believed to have come in with bids.

Corsan head Paul Breuls produced The Devil’s Double with Catherine Vandeleene, Michael John Fedun and Emjay Rechsteiner.