Saddam golden gun found at Heathrow

A gold-plated gun given to one of Saddam Hussein's henchmen has been seized at Heathrow Airport.

The Kalashnikov AK47 found yesterday was similar to the one uncovered at Uday Hussein's palace in Baghdad last week, according to a newspaper report.

The loaded machine gun was discovered along with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, six bayonets and a sniper rifle in packages marked as computer equipment, the newspaper claimed.

A spokesman for Customs and Excise said: "A quantity of arms was found at Heathrow and investigations are ongoing." No further details were given.

The newspaper said the arms are believed to have been stolen for the US black market in war trophies.

An unnamed source told the paper that the gun was loaded, bubble wrapped along with a spare magazine and was bound for an address in the US but was picked up by an X-ray machine.

The Mirror said the guns arrived on a British Airways flight from Kuwait and was found yesterday at the DHL Terminal Four cargo transfer depot which was evacuated and police alerted.

However Richard Goodfellow, spokesman for BA said their security personnel knew nothing about the find and the carrier had stopped flights from Kuwait last month.

He said: "We don't fly from Kuwait. Flights to there were suspended a month ago around mid-March.

"We know nothing about this."

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