Stanley Ho claims North Korea offered dictator asylum

North Korea has issued a bizarre offer of asylum to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as the United States and British military build-up in the Gulf reaches fever pitch.

In a message conveyed through the unlikely offices of Macau casino mogul Stanley Ho Hung-sun, high-level North Korean officials have offered the Iraqi dictator and his family 11th hour sanctuary in a mountain in the North.

Speaking to the Sunday Morning Post yesterday Mr Ho - who has business interests in North Korea - said 'unnamed senior level officials' had told him of the offer.

'We have to take any chance to have peace, especially if it comes in the shape of good news from the East,' said Mr Ho.

'They told me there really was a chance to prevent a war, and said that Saddam Hussein could step down two days before the US and Britain started to bomb and he could call democratic elections.

'One of the conditions of those elections would be that none of the candidates would be allowed funding from US, ensuring that there was no American interference in a future Iraqi democratic state.

'Anyone who did accept money from the US would be shot.