An Indian, who was sentenced to life in Iraq for making statements against Saddam Hussein during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, is free now and will return soon, his family sources said in Mumbai on Monday.

Mohammed Anis Bashir Saboowallah, 42, was in a jail that was bombed by Americans. An Indian television crew traced him last week after a jailbreak and he has now left for Amman, they said.

Anis was a businessman who lived in Kuwait along with 45 family members till 1990.

When Kuwait was invaded, he sent back all the family members to Mumbai and said he would come soon.

His brother, Soheb Bashir Saboowallah, said, "But we came to know in 1994, when we got the first communication from the Indian embassy in Baghdad about Anis, that he was lodged in a jail in Iraq."

"We received communication from Anis till February this year through the Indian embassy... he wrote that the war had started and he did not know his fate.

"We are grateful to television reporter Parvez Bhukar and others for making the family reunion possible after 13 years."

PTI