IT MAY SEEM like an unlikely setting but Latif Yahia watched the film about his curious and dangerous life as the body double for Uday Hussein in Limerick’s Omniplex last weekend.
The former Iraqi army lieutenant brought his mother and a number of friends to the city cinema on Saturday to watch ‘The Devil’s Double’.
Set in Baghdad in 1987, the movie is based on Yahia’s book of the same name. It documents how as a young member of the Iraqi army he was summoned to the Husseins’ palace to be told he must become Uday’s double, or “fiday”.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie today, the author’s agent confirmed that Yahia had watched the film in Limerick.
“Although he has seen the movie at several premieres, he wanted to watch it in peace with nobody staring at him,” JP Rolls told us.
He seemed to achieve this with only the manager of the complex recognising “Saddam’s son” after the showing.
The manager asked him to sign a poster, which he did.
Yahia had previously resided in County Offaly in Ireland but his agent said that because of citizenship difficulties, he now lives in mainland Europe.
The point of his return trip to Limerick was to be able to enjoy the movie while eating popcorn – without the pressure of an audience.
The manager at the Ominplex backed up this version, telling the Limerick Post‘s John O’Shaughnessy that Dr Yahia bought popcorn and Coca-Cola drinks for his 20 friends.
The movie, starring Dominic Cooper in both lead roles (Sadam Hussein’s son Uday and his ‘fiday’), has the tagline “Money. Sex. Power. It’s not enough.”
It shows how Yahia was dragged into the dark world of the excesses of the Hussein family from 1987 to 1991.
Here’s the official trailer from the movie:
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