Deadly poisons made by Saddam's Dr Germ

Her nickname may be faintly amusing, but her role most definitely was not: Dr Germ is the British-trained scientist who masterminded Saddam Hussein's biological warfare arsenal.

Dr Rihab Taha, to give the microbiologist her real name, is the former head of the Iraqi regime's biological weapons programme, and was responsible for some truly chilling creations.

She was educated in Britain, arriving in her early twenties at the University of East Anglia, where she completed a PhD in plant toxins between 1980 and 1984.

After her studies, she returned to Iraq and took charge of the country's major biological facilities in the late Eighties.

Taha was given her Dr Germ nickname by UN weapons inspectors because she ran the facility that made weapons out of anthrax, botulinum toxin and aflatoxin. Among the creations of the 48-year-old mother of a young daughter are poisons which make the eyes bleed, generate fatal diarrhoea in children and provoke botulism, ebola and bubonic plague. There were reports of her overseeing lethal anthrax trials on Iranian prisoners.

Current and former inspectors who interviewed her in the mid-Nineties described her as a difficult and dour character. She was married to Amir Rashid, who held top posts in Saddam's missile programmes and was oil minister before the war.

In an interview for BBC's Panorama, the scientist admitted Iraq did produce biological agents but insisted that under her command the deadly anthrax and botulinum toxin were never "weaponised".

Taha surrendered to coalition forces in Baghdad in May last year.