Samir Abdul Aziz al-Najim is an Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

i politician, who held several senior positions under President Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...

. He was the Minister for Oil from January to April 2003 and the President's chief of staff for several years after the 1991 Gulf War

Gulf War

The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...

. He was the Iraqi Ambassador to Egypt, Turkey, Spain and Russia.

He was born in 1937/8 in Baghdad from a Sunni Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

 background. al-Najim was the regional command chairman for the Ba'ath Party for East Baghdad. He was accused by US Army officers of helping Saddam Hussein plot assassination attempts He was convicted in 1959 of the attempted assassination of Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim and sentenced to death, although Qassim pardoned Najim.

Following the invasion of Iraq by the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and allied forces in 2003, he was depicted as the four of clubs in their deck of most-wanted Iraqi playing cards

Most-wanted Iraqi playing cards

In the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a United States-led coalition, the U.S. military developed a set of playing cards to help troops identify the most-wanted members of President Saddam Hussein's government, mostly high-ranking Baath Party members or members of the Revolutionary Command Council...

. His assets were frozen under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1483

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1483

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1483, adopted on May 22, 2003, after recalling all previous resolutions on the situation between Iraq and Kuwait, the Council lifted trade sanctions against Iraq and terminated the Oil-for-Food Programme.The resolution was drafted by the United States and...

 as a "senior official" and transferred to the Development Fund for Iraq

Development Fund for Iraq

In May 2003, following the invasion of Iraq in March of that year, the Central Bank of Iraq-Development Fund for Iraq account was created at the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the request of the Coalition Provisional Authority Administrator...

.

He was captured by Kurdish peshmerga

Peshmerga

Peshmerga or Peshmerge is the term used by Kurds to refer to armed Kurdish fighters. Literally meaning "those who face death" the Peshmerga forces of Kurdistan have been in existence since the advent of the Kurdish independence movement in the early 1920s, following the collapse of the Ottoman...

 near Mosul

Mosul

Mosul , is a city in northern Iraq and the capital of the Ninawa Governorate, some northwest of Baghdad. The original city stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial...

in April 2003.