"The main operation I carried out on the former president took place during the Gulf war, to be exact on February 1 (1991) after he suffered deep wounds," Ala Bashir told Asharq al-Awsat in an interview.

"I was called out in an emergency to the Ibn Sina hospital which was reserved for Iraqi leaders and found Saddam Hussein in the operating theatre, his face and unform covered in so much blood I thought he was dead.

"Saddam told me he had been hurt in a road accident, but it was clear from the state he was in that it was the result of bombing," the doctor related.