Britain: Downing Street has said there is no question of Saddam Hussein's daughters or wife being granted asylum in the UK, and that any such applications would be turned down.
However, while echoing the same message - "we are not in the business of giving asylum to anyone connected to a barbarous regime" - Home Office minister Ms Beverley Hughes has signalled that the situation might not be so straightforward.
She told the BBC's World at One programme that, while the British government would oppose an application to travel to the UK, it would be "duty-bound" to consider asylum applications in the normal way if any of the women managed to make their way to Britain.
The Sun newspaper yesterday reported that Saddam's daughters, Raghdad (35), and Rana (33), hope to set up homes in Leeds with their 10 children, close to a cousin of their father who lives in the city.
Saddam's cousin, Izzi-Din Mohammed Hassan al-Majid, fled Iraq in 1995 and has leave to stay in the UK indefinitely. Mr al-Majid, who was questioned by immigration officials at Leeds Bradford airport, after arriving back in Britain on a KLM flight from Amsterdam , told the newspaper he was preparing to arrange asylum applications for Rana, Raghdad and their children, who were currently finalising plans to leave Iraq for Britain.
Mr al-Majid suggested the two women, whose husbands were assassinated in 1996 after they had defected to Jordan and were subsequently lured back to Iraq, should be regarded as victims of Saddam Hussein's regime.
In a separate report the Daily Mail said Saddam's wife, Sajida, was also planning to seek asylum in Britain. However the prime minister's spokesman said it would not happen: "We will not consider asylum claims from his daughters, wife or any other members of his family who might have been involved in human rights A Home Office spokeswoman had repeated the same line earlier in the day, saying: "We are under no obligation to give asylum to people who have taken part in human rights abuses."
The spokeswoman refused to elaborate on these alleged offences. However in her subsequent radio interview Ms Hughes appeared to acknowledge potential complications should Saddam's wife or daughters manage to arrive in the UK.
Suggesting that any application received would have to then be considered under the rules Ms Hughes made it clear that the government would "start" from the position that "we are not in the business of giving asylum to members of Saddam Hussein's family".