Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Nidal, whose real name was Sabri Al Banna, entered Iraq illegally in 1999 from Iran carrying a fake Yemeni passport, Taher Jalil Habbush told a press conference.

He said Nidal, 65, shot himself when Intelligence agents turned up at his house to take him for interrogation after his presence in Iraq was discovered.

"He went into a room to change and a shot was fired. The group of agents discovered that he had shot himself in his mouth with a pistol and the bullet had exited the back of his skull.

"He died eight hours later at the hospital to which he was taken," Habbush said.

According to Habbush, a brotherly Arab country had alerted Baghdad authorities to Nidal's entry into Iraq.

"He was able to enter without being spotted thanks to the Yemeni passport he was travelling on because Yemeni workers do not need a visa to visit Iraq," he said in press conference at the Information Ministry.

"We investigated for a very long time before discovering his place of residence where he was living under a different name from that on his passport."

"Nidal, who had enjoyed Iraq's patronage in the 1970s and 1980s, had been banned from Iraq in 1983 when Baghdad discovered his involvement in activities harmful to the security of Iraq and Arab national security," Habbush said.