While Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq with an iron fist, a far darker and more chaotic evil festered within his own family. His eldest son, Uday Saddam Hussein, was not just the heir to a brutal dictatorship; he was a monster in his own right, a man whose sadism, cruelty, and insatiable appetite for violence terrorized a nation already suffocating under oppression. Behind the gilded doors of his palaces and the fortified walls of his secret compounds, Uday orchestrated a personal reign of terror, particularly aimed at women, that went beyond the political brutality of his father’s regime. This is the story of his unchecked depravity, the climate of fear that enabled him, and the violent end to his monstrous life.

Born on June 18, 1964, Uday was raised in a bubble of extreme privilege and absolute power. As Saddam’s firstborn, he was groomed not just to lead, but to dominate. Attending the exclusive Baghdad College High School, he was known by classmates as arrogant, volatile, and profoundly violent. He would humiliate students, assault staff, and fly into rages over the smallest slights. While other boys his age were playing sports, Uday was practicing with pistols and cultivating a deep-seated need for control. By the time his father officially seized the presidency in 1979, the 15-year-old Uday was already behaving as if the country were his personal playground. He was treated not as a teenager, but as a future leader, and he embraced the role with a terrifying sense of entitlement.

As Iraq became embroiled in a bloody war with Iran in the 1980s, thousands of young Iraqi men were sent to die on the front lines. Uday, however, remained untouched by danger, indulging in a life of decadent brutality. He frequented exclusive clubs and private parties, always surrounded by a large entourage, clad in custom suits, and carrying gold-plated pistols. These lavish gatherings soon became his hunting grounds. He began to see the women present—entertainers, daughters of officials, and guests—not as people, but as objects for his conquest.

By 1982, his predatory behavior became systematic. With the aid of agents from the Mukhabarat, Iraq’s intelligence service, Uday began to “select” young women he found attractive. These were often girls between 15 and 19, many from educated and well-connected families. Agents would appear at their homes with false pretenses—a national service summons, a fake award ceremony—and the girls would be taken away. They were delivered to one of Uday’s numerous private residences, where they were isolated and threatened. Resistance was futile; their families were watched, their parents’ jobs were on the line, and any attempt to seek help was met with severe punishment. Inside these villas, Uday didn’t hide his identity. He didn’t need to. He held absolute power, ensuring there would be no police reports, no investigations, and no justice. His cruelty was meticulously organized; he kept locked files containing his victims’ photos, school records, and family details, cataloging their lives with chilling precision.

Uday’s official appointments only expanded his predatory reach. When Saddam appointed him head of the Iraqi Olympic Committee and the Iraq Football Association, he turned these national institutions into instruments of terror. He used his position to target young female athletes, summoning them for so-called “private evaluations” that were nothing more than traps. Coaches who dared to question him risked their careers, and many families, hearing hushed rumors of girls returning traumatized, began pulling their daughters from national sports programs. He also extended his influence over state media, causing several popular female television presenters to vanish from the public eye after catching his attention.

The sheer impunity with which Uday operated was demonstrated in October 1988, at a party filled with diplomats and high-ranking officials. In a fit of drunken rage, Uday publicly murdered Kamel Hana Gegeo, his father’s personal servant and food taster. Uday accused Kamel of introducing Saddam to his second wife, a relationship Uday resented. Without warning, he grabbed a club and beat the man to death in front of dozens of horrified guests. No one dared to intervene. While Saddam was reportedly furious, Uday faced no real consequences, sent into a brief “exile” in Switzerland before quickly returning. If he could kill a trusted member of his father’s inner circle so brazenly, there was no limit to the violence he could inflict on ordinary citizens. Women who resisted his advances were beaten, or they simply disappeared, their cases buried before they could even be opened.

The chaos of the 1990 Gulf War and the subsequent international sanctions created a perfect storm for Uday to intensify his atrocities. With the world’s attention fixed on his father, Uday’s private security network ramped up its operations. Blacked-out luxury vehicles became a common sight outside schools and universities, snatching girls as young as 14, some still in their school uniforms. A covert unit was established for the sole purpose of identifying and transporting these victims, using government resources to operate in the shadows. Girls who were eventually released were emotionally shattered and physically abused, their families forced to sign documents stating their daughters had run away to silence any potential outcry.

In 1993, Uday launched his own media empire, including the Babil newspaper and a television channel, to craft a public image of a modern, youth-friendly leader. In reality, it was another recruitment tool. He used his channel to scout young female singers, dancers, and presenters, luring them with promises of stardom before summoning them to his residences. Refusal had deadly consequences. In one horrifying case, a popular singer invited to a “private performance” refused his demands; weeks later, her death was ruled a suicide, her body quickly buried by government order.

By the late 1990s, his predatory behavior reached a new level of audacity. He began crashing weddings, arriving uninvited with his armed bodyguards. The music would stop, the guests would freeze, and Uday would scan the crowd. If a woman caught his eye—a bridesmaid, a guest, or even the bride herself—she would be ordered to leave with him. At one wedding in Karbala, a 19-year-old bride was taken just hours after her ceremony; her tortured body was found days later. Her father’s demand for an investigation led to his own arrest and disappearance. Fear became so pervasive that families began holding small, private weddings and schools quietly shut down honors programs to avoid attracting Uday’s attention.

To ensure his victims could never speak, Uday established private, off-the-books detention centers. After the 2003 invasion, U.S. forces discovered one such facility near Baghdad International Airport. It contained a wing of small, soundproofed cells designed for female prisoners. The walls were covered in graffiti scratched by the victims—names, dates, prayers, and marks counting the days of their captivity. These women were not official prisoners; they were the disappeared, locked away in total silence, subjected to torture and Uday’s personal visits.

An assassination attempt in December 1996 momentarily shattered his world. Ambushed in his car, Uday was shot at least seven times, with bullets damaging his spine and leaving him reliant on a cane for the rest of his life. But the attack did not humble him; it only made him more paranoid and reliant on his guards to carry out his violent commands.

The end finally came in the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. With Baghdad’s fall, Uday, along with his brother Qusay, became one of America’s most wanted men. After months on the run, they were tracked to a villa in Mosul. On July 22, 2003, U.S. Special Forces surrounded the building. A fierce, four-hour firefight ensued, ending with the deaths of Uday, Qusay, and Qusay’s teenage son. When photos of their bodies were released, a quiet sense of relief rippled across Iraq. For countless victims and their families, the nightmare was finally over. Uday Hussein’s death marked the end of a uniquely brutal chapter in Iraq’s history, but the scars of his terror—the missing daughters, the shattered lives, and the pervasive fear he cultivated—could never be erased. Justice arrived not in a courtroom, but at the end of a gun, closing the book on a life defined by unimaginable evil.