DUBAI (AFP) - Saddam Hussein, the ousted Iraqi dictator who was hanged in 2006 for crimes against humanity, feared he would pick up sexual diseases while he was in US custody, according to extracts from prison writings published in an Arabic newspaper.

Saddam said he asked his prison guards not to put their washing on the same line as his, fearing he could contract “young people’s diseases,” the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported, citing his journal.

“My main concern was to avoid contracting a sexual disease in a place like this, and AIDS,” he said.

Saddam was hanged on December 30, 2006, after an Iraqi court found him guilty of crimes against humanity for ordering the execution of 148 Shiites from the town of Dujail after an assassination attempt against him in 1982.