The owner of a restaurant which is displaying the image of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has been bombarded with death threats since making the political statement which he claims has been misunderstood.

Ayyad Al-Hamdan, 43, the owner of Lebanese restaurant This Is It in Station Road, Harrow, is displaying the photo in protest at the lack of action taken for Western governments to address the human rights abuses in his home country of Kuwait.

He exclusively told getwestlondon: "I have had threats. Three of them. One man, he called and said that I will die because of this. I just smiled. People are misunderstanding."

The now-deceased dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, triggering Western intervention which led to the Gulf War.

Mr Al-Hamdan,  who came to England in 1997 fleeing the regime, believes the human rights abuses currently going on are being ignored and the photo is his way of bringing attention to his cause, but Conservative leader of Harrow Council Susan Hall came to the restaurant last week to ask him to take it down.

But the defiant restaurateur said: "We are talking about my home country, so this is why I came up with this image. Saddam's picture is something everyone knows, it is iconic and is shows how important this issue is. I will not take it down, and I will go to court if that is what it takes.

"In my country we have a president who is corrupt, who is only interested in money while there are 200,000 people without work and without medical support.

"If anyone does not like the picture, I want them to come in and we can have a discussion about these issues. I have written to human rights organisations and to the American embassy here, but I realised that this was my only way of being heard."