"I wish that he be tried by an international tribunal. I don't want him to be tried by Iraqi judges in order to avoid the risk of any personal revenge," Jamal Kamel told AFP.

In 1996, Saddam ordered the execution of Jamal Kamel's brothers, General Hussein Kamel Hassan al-Majid and Colonel Saddam Kamel, who were married to Saddam's daughters, Raghad and Rana, respectively.

Nine other members of the family, including their father and sister, perished in the massacre after Saddam lured them back from exile in Jordan with a promise of an amnesty.

Jamal Kamel wants Saddam to pay for these crimes but he refuses to say whether he would like the former Iraqi president to face the death sentence, which many Iraqis are now demanding for the ousted leader.

Members of the US-backed interim Iraqi Government Council insist that Saddam but be judged by an Iraqi tribunal inside Iraq.

"All the Governing Council members agree that Saddam must be tried in Iraq by Iraqi judges," Hamid al-Kifai, spokesman for the body appointed in July by the US occupation forces, told AFP Friday.

And Paul Bremer, the US civil administrator in Iraq, said on Friday that the deposed dictator "will be tried by the Iraqi courts when the Iraqi courts are ready."

Jamal Kamel does not care where Saddam is tried "as long as he is heard by an international tribunal. It could be in Iraq or outside the country.

"I want the tribunal that will judge Saddam to be hate-free," he said.

He also believes that Saddam, who was captured on December 13 near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq, "surrendered to the Americans after contacting them through one of his personal bodyguards".

A senior US military intelligence officer, Major Stan Murphy, told reporters Friday in Tikrit that the Iraqi man who fingered Saddam was his top aide.

He described the man as Saddam's "right arm" who hailed from one of five major tribes in a 20-kilometre (12-mile) stretch around Tikrit and said he is currently in detention. But he refused to name him.

Rife speculation that Saddam was betrayed by someone close to him does not hold well with Jamal Kamel.

"If he had been betrayed by one of his relatives, he would have fought to the last bullet," said Jamal Kamel, who said his life was spared from the wrath of Saddam thanks to the protection of powerful Sunni Muslim tribes in northern Iraq.

He believes Saddam gave himself up because he had no alternative.

"Saddam is over 65. He was tired and could be easily recognised by any Iraqi. He could not slip unnoticed in the population," he said.

Jamal Kamel also rules out reports suggesting that Saddam was drugged.

"Unlike some people, I don't think he was drugged," he said.

Saddam's eldest daughter, Raghad, and his sister, Nawal Ibrahim al-Hasan, have said in separate interviews following his capture that he must have been drugged.