Barzan represented his country at the United Nations in Geneva from 1988 and returned home in late 1998, after his wife died of cancer.

During his stay in Geneva, he set up arrangements designed to circumvent the UN sanctions clamped on Iraq since 1990 and managed Saddam's assets in European banks, according to opponents of the ousted Iraqi regime.

He coordinated Baghdad's intelligence network in Europe, and was involved in purchasing weapons and equipment for Iraq's arms programs.

A source close to Barzan said that during this period, he urged Saddam to abolish the ruling Revolution Command Council and proposed forming a government of technocrats he himself would head.

Hot-tempered but secretive, Barzan was on bad terms with Saddam's elder son Uday, whom he considered "inept to govern," according to Iraqi opposition figures.

Both Barzan and Watban, another of Saddam's half brothers, figure on the Pentagon's list of the wanted men of the Iraqi regime. Barzan is named on the list as "Barzan Ibrahim Hasan," and he and Watban are each identified as "presidential advisor and Saddam half-brother."

The fall out with Saddam in 1988 was caused by Barzan's objection to the marriage of one of the president's daughters to Hussein Kamel Hassan, the friend said.

Hassan was a member of the Tikriti clan who became a leading figure of the regime, in charge of military industrialization, before he defected in 1995 to Jordan. He was killed in 1996 upon his return to Iraq.

Barzan had been placed under house arrest by Saddam in March this year for contesting his wish that the former Iraqi leader's son, Qusay, eventually succeed him, according to a family friend and press reports.

Born in 1951 in Tikrit, Saddam's home town 180 kilometers (112 miles) north of Baghdad, Barzan graduated from Baghdad's Al-Mustansiriyah University where he studied law and political science. He has eight children.

On April 11, Barzan was reported by the family friend to have been killed in a US bombing of his farm, in the region of Ramadi, west of Baghdad.

SPACE.WIRE