Hussain Ibrahim Saleh al-Shahristani is the current Iraqi Minister of Oil. The Shiite is a former nuclear scientist who was imprisoned in Abu Ghraib in 1980 and subjected to torture.

The reasons for his imprisonment have remained unclear. Some former Shiite leaders have stated that he used his powerful government position to make and distribute pamphlets urging Iraq's Shiite soldiers to abandon the army and fight against their fellow soldiers and officers. While other Government Defectors, including Khidir Hamza his supposed successor, have claimed that he was imprisoned for his lack of skill in handling the Nuclear program, constant problems with the IAEA, and his purposed delays in the program in order to prevent the country from constructing Nuclear Weapons (costing the Government Billions of dollars that could have been used toward the Iran-Iraq War) and was imprisoned personally by Saddam Hussein himself. "While imprisoned and tortured at Abu Ghraib prison for 11 years under Saddam Hussein for 'religious activities,' he refused to help build a nuclear weapon for the country."

He escaped from Abu Gharib during the Gulf War and escaped to Iran, where he left toward Canada.