Kamel Hana Gegeo

Birth Year 1918

DEATH DATE 1988-10-18, (70 years old)

Nationality Syria

#45431 Most Popular

1988

Kamel Hana Gegeo (كامل حنا ججو; c. 1960s – 18 October 1988) was an Iraqi Assyrian bodyguard, valet, and food taster of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

He was murdered by Saddam’s son Uday Hussein at a party with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as a guest.

Gegeo is said to have introduced Saddam to his second wife, Samira Shahbandar, and arranged trysts between them, which led to a feud between Gegeo and Sajida Talfah, Saddam’s first wife, and Uday Hussein, who took it as an insult to his mother Sajida.

Gegeo’s father, Hana Gegeo, was one of Saddam Hussein’s personal chefs, his mother was the nanny of Hala, one of Saddam’s daughters, and his brother, Malco Hana Gegeo, was a military man assigned by Saddam to form the Assyrian forces, which were then called the Assyrian regiment.

On 18 October 1988, Gegeo was murdered by Uday Hussein.

During a party thrown in honour of Suzanne Mubarak, the wife of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Uday Hussein bludgeoned Gegeo with a club in front of guests, and by some accounts, finally shot him to death, possibly acting on orders from his mother.

Saddam was willing to punish Uday and arrest him for murder, but after multiple pleads by Sajida Talfah and Gegeo’s parents to pardon Uday, he exiled him to Switzerland instead of imprisoning him.

Mubarak himself later called Uday a "psychopath".