Uday's Maiden?

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Saddam Hussein's psychotic firstborn, Uday, enjoyed a long, sadistic reign as Iraq's sports czar. As chief of Iraq's National Olympic Committee and its soccer organization, he ordered the torture of athletes who performed below expectations. The national soccer team came in for particularly savage treatment: players had their feet scalded and toenails ripped off for failing to win matches. But on visits to Iraq, investigators from international sporting bodies, notably soccer's FIFA, never found people to testify to such charges — no player dared, for fear of getting far worse.

On Saturday, TIME found what may be the first solid proof of torture in Uday's own backyard — the administrative compound of the Olympic committee in central Baghdad. Laying on its side beneath a pile of dead leaves not 20 meters from Uday's office was a refugee from a medieval dungeon: an iron maiden.

About two meters tall, a meter wide and just deep enough to contain a grown man, the iron sarcophagus-shaped device was worn from use; rusty three-inch nails lined the inside of its doors and walls, pointing inward; they'd lost some of their sharpness. A reporter who put the structure upright and stepped inside determined that the maiden was still capable of performing her lethal function. The device was brought to TIME's attention by a group of looters who had been stripping the compound of anything of value. The iron maiden, they thought, was worthless. That may or may not be true, but its working days do seem finally to be through.