Kadhem Sharif
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1952 (age 64–65) Iraq |
| Sport | |
| Country | Iraq |
| Club | Iraqi national wrestling team |
| Now coaching | Deputy coach of the Iraqi national wrestling team |
| Updated on 2007-07-25. | |
Kadhem Sharif also known as al-Yabani ("the Japanese" in Arabic) or Kadhim al-Jabbouri is an Iraqi world-class wrestler and weightlifter. He is most famous for attempting to use a sledgehammer to bring down the statue of Saddam Hussein at the Firdos Square in Baghdad.
Kadhem Sharif was born in 1952 and like his father became obsessed with motorcycles. "I was 12 when I sneaked out on my father's Harley for the first time. I bought my first one eight years later, a 1966 Fatboy," Sharif recalls.
As he grew up he also developed a passion for wrestling and weightlifting, becoming a world-class athlete. Many of his sporting adventures held danger and he remembers that every time the Iraqi team did badly the leader of Iraqi sports, Saddam's son Uday Hussein, would order that everyone have their heads and eyebrows shaved and on at least one occasion, they were put in prison.
Sharif's association did not end there as Uday had Sharif build him a world-class gym. Sharif also developed a weightlifting program for Uday. Sharif supplied some supplements but Uday instead started abusing steroids
Steroids affected him, he became an addict. The doctors said he should not mix alcohol and steroids, but he did and it drove him mad. He was trying to be a hero by taking more and more tablets. But he failed.
Uday took up collecting motorcycles like Sharif, even stealing some from him. It was at this point that they had a falling out and Sharif refused to fix any of Uday's bikes. It was then that he was thrown in jail on trumped up charges and spent two years in Iraqi prisons.
On April 9, 2003 Sharif had his chance to take revenge. Hearing that the Saddam regime had fallen he took a 10 kg (22 lb) sledgehammer and went to work on the statue of Saddam Hussein that stood in Firdos Square in Baghdad. The square is directly in front of the Palestine Hotel where the world's journalists had been staying. Seeing a crowd and a story, the reporters and their cameras streamed out of the hotel and video taped the falling of Saddam Hussein's statue. While Sharif's actions with the sledgehammer only resulted in a small dent in the statue base and bloody hands, he does claim to have handed over the Iraqi flag that was placed on the statue.
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Wikipedia