Keeper of Secrets

Suppose that I was a volunteer with a humanitarian organization and I was serving a stint in Baghdad when Saddam Hussein wrote from prison to request compassionate visits from our office. In the weeks before he was convicted and executed, I’d go to the prison twice a week and sit with him in a meeting room for an hour or so. He told me stories of his boyhood. Eventually he related episodes of his sexual abuse by an older male relative, now deceased.

He wished to tell this story, he said, because he wanted people to know what had befallen him in childhood. At my encouragement, he forwarded a written account of the abuse to my office, and some my colleagues wrote him letters expressing their dismay and compassion. Others were more skeptical. One, in particular, undertook a cursory investigation and discovered that the man Mr. Hussein had identified as his abuser had in fact never existed. Mr. Hussein’s answer to this was that he’d constructed a fake identity for this person in order to protect his family. His abuser was still alive. Despite this explanation, his credibility suffered. My colleagues moved on to other things.

Mr. Hussein was found guilty and the day of his execution loomed, At the office, I received a note from him once again requesting my presence. He said he had something important to tell me, and I went to meet him at the prison. The story of his victimization at the hands of a pedophile was, he said, entirely made up. He was merely exercising creative license as a writer of fiction. None of it had happened.

Because he had initially gained the sympathy of some of my colleagues, this information distressed me, I sought the advice of the individual who had exposed part of his lie. This person encouraged me to relate this latest disclosure to our organization, so that they might know the full extent of the deception. Though Mr. Hussein had not asked me to keep the information confidential, I wasn’t comfortable putting it in a memo for all to read. I would, I said, seek Mr. Hussein’s permission to disclose it. I made an appeal to Mr. Hussein the day before his hanging, but he requested that I not reveal this last part of his deception. He said he was convinced that his sin was cleansed by his admission to me, but that if others were party to the information, their judgment of him would surely jeopardize his chances for immortality in the afterlife. This seemed so ridiculous to me that I wondered if he even believed it himself.

Nevertheless, I did not tell anyone of his last disclosure. The colleague I had consulted has on several occasions since expressed his dismay at my refusal to speak out. He has not opted to reveal the information himself.

Questions: Is it moral or immoral to keep a liar’s confidences, even from those to whom he lied? What consequences might come about if one were to break such a confidence? Should I have revealed Mr. Hussein's last secret? Why has my colleague not revealed it?