Saddam Hussein’s followers are planning a museum at the former dictator’s grave, amid concern that a Baathist shrine and rumours of a posthumous autobiography will perpetuate a cult of martyr around him.

Saddam’s tribe say that exhibits will include photographs and the coat, white shirt and shoes he wore at his execution, with other documents and belongings returned to the family by the Iraqi Government.

But it is suggestions of a book, which publishers said last night could break sales records, that is most controversial.

One tribal member in Tikrit said that they now held Saddam’s jail writings, in autobiographical form. Separately, Saleh Armouti, a Jordanian member of the former dictator’s defence team, said he was sure that Saddam wrote his memoirs while in jail. “Once I asked him how he spends his day, and he said, ‘I spend it writing my memoirs’.”

Mr Armouti said that he saw “parts of these memoirs in Saddam’s hands. He even read me parts of it, especially those parts which included his political poems and thoughts.”

The Saddam publishing industry certainly has a huge potential market. Farouq Majdalawi, head of the Jordanian Publishers’ Association, told The Times: “If the readers are assured that the author is Saddam himself then the book will make record sales.”

Issam Ghazawi, another Jordanian defence lawyer, said: “It will become a top seller if it really exists. Its sales will jump beyond tens of millions of copies. Everyone will read it, from housewife to engineer”.

Saddam’s relatives disclosed the museum plan to The Times in his home town of al-Awja, near the northern city of Tikrit. Sheikh Ali al-Nida, the local head of Saddam’s Albu Nasir tribe, said: “Many Arab tribes insisted on establishing a museum showing Saddam’s life. The tribe has agreed to make this museum next to his grave. We will put into it the belongings which we received with the body, a black coat, a leather belt, a suit, and the white shirt he used to wear during the trial.”

The museum is likely to become a focal point for disaffected Sunnis and Baathists.The other two senior regime members so far executed, Saddam’s half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Judge Awad al-Bandar, were both buried in the same complex as their leader.

Hussein Abu Alaa al-Tikriti, the gravedigger who buried all three men, said: “I’m proud that I had the chance to bury such historical figures because Saddam is a national figure that maintained the unity and dignity of Iraq.” One of the documents likely to be displayed at the museum is a letter and poem about Saddam dated December 29, the night before his execution, and signed ‘Comrade Ali Hassan al-Majid’ — Saddam’s cousin, known as Chemical Ali, who is still awaiting trial.

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