Saddam Hussein had a secret torture chamber in central New York city where prisoners were tortured and killed, it has been reported.
From the outside, the Mission of Iraq is a grand townhouse in a wealthy party of the city near Central Park.
But according to former officials, he hid a dark secret during the days of the brutal dictator.
Agents of Mukhabarat - Saddam's brutal 'Gestapo' - would abduct Iraqis who had fled his regime for America and bring them to be tortured, the New York Post reports.
At the time, it was immune from American law as sovereign Iraqi territory.
One former worker told how prisoners were taken down to the basement where there was a windowless room behind steel-reinforced doors.
Inside they would be subjected to bloodthirsty abuse.
Rubber hoses, planks of wood and pliers were involved, it is claimed.
"The doors were reinforced in a way that nobody could break in or out.
"You didn’t need to soundproof it,” one official said.
Another official added/; “You’re not going to hear someone screaming down there.”
Sometimes, detainees would meet a grisly end and their bodies would be shipped back to Iraq in diplomatic boxes.
Such mail cannot be opened by Customs officers.
"Mukhabarat does whatever the hell Mukhabarat needs to do.
"They are the last people you ever wanted to meet during the Saddam era," an official said.
All evidence of the violence was destroyed before Saddam fell from power in 2003 and Americans stormed the building.
