Saddam Hussein in detention is a broken man, apparently seeking the mercy of his captors to protect him from his own people, an Iraqi official who met him after his arrest said Monday.

"I found a very broken man. He was, I think, psychologically ruined and very demoralized. His body language showed that he was very miserable," said Muwaffaq al-Rubaiye, who met Saddam on Sunday with Iraq's U.S. governor Paul Bremer and Lieutenant- General Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. soldier in Iraq.

This picture shows ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein after his capture in a video presented by the US authorities during the press conference in Baghdad officially announcing his arrest. [AFP/File]

Rubaiye and other members of Iraq's Governing Council met captured Saddam for 30 minutes.

"When we were asking him difficult questions and throwing accusations, reminding him of his crimes, he was looking at Ambassador Bremer and General Sanchez, as if he was asking the Americans to protect him," Rubaiye told Reuters.

"He felt safer with the Americans. I think that indicates that probably he is cooperating with the Americans."

Rubaiye denied reports Saddam's U.S. captors had moved him abroad, saying he was still in Iraq and would stay to become the first defendant in a new Iraqi court set up to try members of his deposed government for crimes against humanity and genocide.

"I can tell you he will not leave Iraq, he will be tried in Iraq, he will be sentenced in Iraq, and he will serve his sentence in Iraq," he said, adding he expected to see the deposed strongman face the court "within weeks."

Human rights groups have said Iraq lacks the judges, lawyers and institutions to conduct fair trials without international guidance, but Rubaiye said the court would prove its fairness through Saddam's trial.

"This tribunal is going to follow all international legal standards, it's going to observe and be monitored by human rights standards. He's going to have the right of defense," he said.

Rubaiye was certain Saddam would be convicted of crimes including a campaign of genocide against Iraq's Kurds and war crimes stemming from the invasions of Iran and Kuwait, partly because he showed no remorse for his actions.

"He has absolutely no remorse toward the crimes he has committed against the Iraqi people. The man is unrepentant, he's pure evil," he said, citing Saddam's answer when asked why he invaded Kuwait in 1990, sparking the first Gulf War and more than a decade of crippling economic sanctions.

"He was saying that 'When I came in the Iraqi people were barefoot and hungry. I fed them and bought them slippers'," Rubaiye said.

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