Most Gulf newspapers on Saturday highlighted controversial pictures of Saddam Hussein in US custody, with Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat devoting two thirds of its front page to a photograph of the ousted Iraqi leader washing his clothes. "Saddam washes his clothes," screamed the banner headline of the pan-Arab London-based daily, above a picture showing the 68-year-old wearing a white-robed garment while washing his clothes by hand in a bucket. Asharq Al-Awsat published three more of the pictures which caused an outcry, saying this was "in agreement" with the British newspaper The Sun, which carried the pictures on Friday along with the New York Post, another tabloid owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
The front page of Al-Riyadh, another leading Saudi daily, showed a widely used picture of someone looking at The Sun's cover Friday under the headline, "Saddam in his underwear, star of an American and a British newspaper."
Qatari dailies also ran the photos on their front pages, with Ash-Sharq headlining, "Saddam in underwear in The Sun and New York Post." Qatar's Al-Watan headlined remarks by Saddam's lawyers that "the pictures are a new Abu Ghraib" - a reference to the shocking images of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners which emerged from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison more than a year ago.
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