JOSEPH FADELLE

Joseph Fadelle (born Mohammed al-Sayyid al-Moussawi), is a Roman Catholic convert from Islam and a writer born in 1964 in Iraq in a Muslim Shiite family.[1]

Born in Iraq, in a relatively wealthy older aristocratic family Shiite of this country, Fadelle fled the country with his wife and children because of the fatwa after his conversion. His conversion took place from a conversation with a Christian during his military service in 1987,[2] and a dream and a strict reading of the Koran and the Bible. Joseph Fadelle went through a phase of Atheism. He also had a dream that led him to embrace the Christian faith. He lived his conversion secret for many months, including with his wife and two children, and was discovered by his wife, who followed in his approach, then his family, some of whom wanted to kill him. Tortured by the political regime of Saddam Hussein for several months at the request of an uncle, Fadelle was released only after his uncle died. He had to wait long to be baptized, as the Catholic authorities sought to avoid falling foul of an Iraqi law banning conversions. To flee the country, Fadelle left through Jordan, narrowly escaping an assassination attempt organised by his own brothers, and where a Muslim official of UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) falsely accused Fadelle before Western authorities of complicity in the gas attack on Kurds which left 5,000 dead. Fadelle has lived in France since 2001 and has since obtained French nationality. His autobiography The Price to Pay, published in 2010, sold 50,000 copies sold by late 2010. In it, he describes his conversion, and refers toMuhammad as a political strategist not a religious man and Islam as a prison from which his conversion liberated him. When traveling in public, Fadelle is escorted by police because of death threats.